The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-02 00:00:00

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

This regenerated periodical, which has cast
loff the " old man," and put on the new Adam,
passes the boundary line of 1832 with a firm,
confident step, as if weariness and ennui were
things not even to be dreamed of. We hope it
will realise its expectations, and, above all, its
professions. All looks fair at present ; but the
journey has been short hitherto ; the difficulties
of the road have yet to be experienced and sur-
mounted. The introductory observations on
the " New Year" are very gracefully and perti-
nently written. We subjoin an extract, which
embodies an useful, interesting, and character-
istic anecdote, regarding the deserved influence
of that upright and intelligent hebdomadal, the
Spectator newspaper :
" Now let us tell Our country readers, afraid of incen-
diadem and quaking at Captain Swing, an anecdote that '
occurred within our own knowledge. In one of the dis-
tressed and insurgent districts last year, there was a certain
incorrigible hamlet of self-confessed machine-breakers and
suspected rick-burners. In vain went the squire, in vain
the parson, in vain the bailiff, (a popular fellow in his way
too, with a bluff, pleasant manner,) among this formidable
ne.t.of rustic conspirator., explaining, denouncing, and
imploring, talking one moment of increased wages, and the
next of a month at the tread-mill. Our sturdy insur-
gents laughed at the teachers, who they fancied wanted to
delude, and who they knew wanted to pacify, them. A
month at the tread-mill was no hardship, and that they
conceived the extent of the penance to which they were
liable. Things grew worse ;—barns were fired as well as
and half a dozen soldiers were sent for in despair to
try the last logic of the bayonet ; when happily a stray
number of the Spectator newspaper found its way down
to the Parson's sicarage. In this paper was a short state-
ment or address to the agricultural rioters, informing them
of the nature of their crimes and the extent of their pu-
nishment; in a word, explaining what neither squire nor
peasant knew before, that that punishment was not at the
most a short exercise in the treadmill—it was transporta-
tion—it was death. The parson was a clever and a shrewd
roan. He sent for some score copies of this piper, and
instantly caused them to be circulated among the rioters.
The effect was magical : the whole tone of that admirable
paper is ao liberal, that the most violent perceived that
they were adCressed by a friend, and the law, in this number,
was so clearly put forth, that the most sturdy were ap-
palled by the statement. Within a week from that time
fei ri —s at n
if the peasaits were not wholly reconciled to the farmers
—the macl ines at least were ag;iin in work, and the busi-
ness of liglifing the swart face of night was left once more
to the stars and Diana. Here what soldiers could not
have done, was effected by a newspaper. And here is a
fact th it says volumes for cheap periodicals. Had wot ks
of an equal honesty and intelligence been early sold for a
penny
a-piece, throughout the villages of Kent and Sussex,
we should not perhaps have been called upon to celebrate
the solemn holiday of the Christian world. with executions
of vengeance, and warrants of death ; nor have crowded
our gaols with men whom we first condemned to igno-
rance, and whom ignorance, and therefore ourselves, hur-
ried blindfold into crime. This is the first day of a new
yhe gh and august commencement of a new series
he onward step in the great march of human
we h ore already taught to aim at brave
pe destinies
tit
e
exalted triumphs. On this day, therefore, as
the first of all political objects, higher than any Parlia-
mentary Reform, and without which Parliamentary
Reform exposes us rather to the caprices of pas-
sion than to the power of opinion,—we insist earnestly,
seriously, resolvedly upon the early necessity of removing
all taxes that press upon knowledge, and of laying the
gratin• d•work of true national amendment in a national
educatien. We call upon Lord Althorp to redeem his old
pledges on the Stamp Act ;—we invoke Lord Brougham
to mature those gre it schemes, of which pamphlets on
hydrostatics arc a tantalizing forerunner—scarcely useful
as a beginning—utterly abortive as an end. The school-
master is abroad, but at present we have seen more of his
rod than his books."
(c The Temper of the House of Lords" is a
misnomer. It is, however, a readable, though
desultory, essay. " English Notions of Mo-
rality" arc admirable. So severe, so cutting,
yet so perfectly just and dignified ! Whoever
penned this brief, but pungent paper, has shown
that he is a man possessed of great and varied

powers of obgervation. " The /inti-Reformer"
is a tale of the customary calibre. " Asmodeus
at large," clever, though the conception is
hacknied ; and the " Conversations with an
Ambitious Student," remarkable fur some
ingenious and rather fantastic speculatitms
the merits of " Young's Night Thoughts."
The portrait of Talleyrand is faithful as a
likeness, and creditable as a work of art and
the minor matters, the mechanical part of the
Magazine, is executed in an improved spirit, with
evident pains-taking, by a gentleman, who,
because he possesses talent, does not think it
beneath him to adopt the diligent habits of a
man of business; .