The Sun.
London, England, 1835-08-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE DAY.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL MAGAZINE.
A. J. Valpy. • .
This is the first Number of a new monthly periodical,
which promises,- under careful management, powerfully to
assist in diffusing sound political and general knowledge.
Its principles are not Well defined ; but, gathered from its
political articles, they partake -most of the Complexion of
constitutional whiggery. The opening article on " Public
Opinion—,Parties—the,Ministry,"we read with great saris
faction; although we consider the writer rather timid in
the, general expression of- his Opinions. We quite agree
.with him.., where•he says- that The spirit of the age will
inevitably work out Reform—that is, it will disencumber
our institutions of useless complexity, and modify their
bearing, to the .wants Of- society. The progress it has
already made is the guarantee for this. We cannot
sink back into apathetic indifference." We also agree
with him that " the Reform Bill and its-adjunct—the Mu-
nicipal Reform Bill are evidences 'of the force of the intel
ligence of the nation." 'His observations of the mistaken
tioicy of the Whigs, in not moving in advance of pUblic
opinion.-are especially deserVingof attention:
The " Medical Student in, London" is a very interesting
sketch. "Poor Laws for Ireland" is still more important,
and seVeral of the difficulties of the question are success-
fully grappled with and. overcome. The most novel feature
in this periodical is a monthly index to the books reviewed
in the more influential London literary journals, so . that by
glancing at-this- index, an author will see in which of the
weekly periodicals his work has
.been noticed. This is
highly important ; but Why not include that part of the
daily press which devotes a portion of its columns-to litera-
ture? Its influence in extending the notice of new works
is. certainly net unimportant.

TAIT'S MAGAZINE.

Tait, Edinburgh ; Sirup in, Marshall, and Co% London.
The criticism on the Life and writings fb.,D, William Cob-
bett in this Number is better than any any other periodicals of t}_.. month: The remarks, .
se-
vere as they are sometnes, are, throughout the article, cha-
racterised by 'tlAct justice : nothing is extenuated, nor
aught set down in malice, and the tendency of the whole
is decidedly, as it should be, favourable to Mr. Cobbett,
whom the writer, at the close of a passage replete with the
best part of eloquence, feeling, pronounces to have been
the first writer of his day. We must net omit to mention
..the extracts from the writings of this eminent politician,
whiCh are carefully and tastefully selected. Like his cotem-
porargraser, Tait calls, for. a Memoir. and selection from the
:" Tfeauties of Cobbett." Such a work is indeed much -
wanted. " Autobiography of an English Opium Eater,
Oxford," is by De Quincy, and is less heavy and more
readable than it was last month. " The Aristocracy of
Talent" possesses this not very ordinary recommendation in
a periodical article, that it helps its readers to think—gives
them materials for sound and Valuable reflection. We could
have borne an addition to its length, which is saying a great
deal for it. The Political Register is a judicious digest of
all the leading, public events of the month.

FRASER'S _MAGAZINE.
•
Fraser, Regent-street.
The worst article in this Number is precisely that which
has been the most elaborated ; we mean the one on' Cole-
ridge's Table-Talk, which ;is vague, diffuse, and, in more
than one instance, unintelligible. It has besides the additional
disadvantage of showing " pretty considerable" ill-nature, in
the shape of an attack on Mr. De Quincy, merely because
in some articles which he punned in Tait's Maaazine the
other day; on Coleridge, he did not think fit to exalt him
to
,the rank of a demigod. Now it so happens that no man
of the present day understood the mind of Coleridge better
than the English Opium Eater ; no man admired him
more—no man has done more ample justice to his memory.
Fraser's attack • on' him, therefore, is' wholly unmerited.
" Bombardinio on Things in General" is a lively, desultory
paper, as its title imports.. The brief memoir of Henry
O'Brien, author of a learned Treatise on the Round Towers
of Ireland is more kindly written than usual. We did not
know till now that this able, young writer was dead.. The
" Dissenters and the Universities" is sophistically argued on
the wrong side of the question. But decidedly the best
essay in the Number is the critical Memoir of Mr. Cob-
bett, who is treated with the respect that his unquestionable
ability deserves. We regret that we Cannot afford room for
an extract.

THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE.
Simpkin and Marshall.
Anthony Poplar grows intolerably prosy, vapid, and oc-
. casionally downright stupid. He begins to repeat himself
with the most tiresome monotony, and talks, or rather raves,
of Roman Generals, of whose 'lathes "he remembers no
more than if he had never read a page of Livy. This
comes of his excessive piety of late. Some twelve months
ago Anthony was a fine healthy looking fellow, with a,spice
of the Devil in him, as became an Irishman ; and when he
cracked a joke, which he did every second or third page, he
set serious rooks at defiance for five minutes at least. Now
he is quite changed, looking as sallow as a frosted turnip,
and as grave as a professor of the unknown tongue. His
'thoughts by day and his dreams by night are all about the
dangers which threaten Mother Church, whose constitution
he fears is far too delieate to withstand the Parliamentary
operation which is abotit to be performed upon her. We
really could almost find in our hearts to write a. phillipPic
in the Standard denouncing Ministers for their Anti-
Protestant zeal to tranqnillize Ireland, by abolishing ec-
clesiastical sinecures, were it only out of compassion-
for the sufferings which our friend Anthony has,
endured from the mere apprehension. of Whig Church Re-
form. Even Lord Morpeth would relent if he knew the
mental aberrations of which his unlucky Bill is the me-
lancholy occasion. And . yet we cannot believe that the
'Church Reform measure alone has wrought this surpassing
change in the looks, feeling, and voice of our once delight-
ful contemporary. We Will venture to bet our horn snuff-
box, (the only family heir. loom in our possession,) against any
equally valuable relic of the ingenuity of the dark ages, that
our friend has fallen over head ears in love with some
'morose, austere, tract-distributing spinster between fifty and
sixty,
,who, apprehensive of the efficacy of all other seed,
has betaken herself to the cultivation of .that which is,spi-
ritually sown. If such has really been the fate of Antho-
ny Poplar—and we dreaded some such calamity from the
moment it was whispered to us by a friend, that he was to
be sometimes found of an' ,evening,' in a certain back par-
lour in Grafton Street, engaged in religions discourse with
a very religious lady of a certain age—we seriously 'ad-
vise him to try the climate of Italy for a month or two,
and see what absence and change of scene will effect for
him: If his love be 'genuinely Irish lie may rely upon a
speedy recovery. We have ourselves known Irish loVe
to expire of inanition in an absence of three days ; and the •
case must be desperate indeed, where symptoms of certain
dissolution are not manifested in the course of the first
fortnight.
As our respectable Irish, contemporary is opposed to us
in politics, some persons may suspect us of being actuated
by a desire to maintain the interests of a party without
much scruple as to the means. We will so far condescend
to remove these suspicions, as to quote a few 'sentences
from the opening article on the-Church, which we believe
will be quite sufficient to do away with every doubt of our
impartiality :--
4, We have seen men professing to be Protestants, voting that
Protestantism be suppressed—and to effect this, they have inter-
fered with the most sacred rights and violated the most solemn en-
gagements; and that no tinge or colour of moral guilt might be
wanting to complete the picture of depravity which is presented to
our view, men who had sworn a solemn oath never to use their
parliamentary privileges to injure the Church Establishment, are
unblushingly voting for its spoliation. Well may we say
that it is unhappily for England that she has been familiar with
such discUssions !—discussions in which we have been condemned
to witness the reckless abandonment of every principle that has hi-
therto been held sacred; senators disregarding oaths, and mocking
at the faith of treaties—all sanctions, human and divine, unhesi-
tatingly broken through—the duties of religion forgotten, and the
sacredness of prescription violation violated—sacrilege, perjury, and
perfidy tolerated, encouraged, and almost unrebuked ; all this we
have been condemned to witness—every thing, in a word, that could
painfully force upon us the awful conviction that the high and palm),
days of Britain's honour are gone by,:and that our country has far
advanced in the contaminating and demoralizing progress of revo.
Intion "

. Again
-''°° 16' [Loill'3loipeth's .Chuich till] principle is to make the
Roman Catholic religion the established religion of Ireland, and to
leave the Protestant Church a stipendiary body depending on the
eleemosynary contributions of the State." •
A,gain—
___

" We have endeavoured to suppress those feelings of indignation
which could not but arise in , our minds as we perused the iniqui-
tous provisions of this Bill—as we found principle after principle of
Protestantism abandoned, clause after clause proceeding farther in
.the work of spoliation and insult—cool, deliberate insults flung upon
the faith that we had been accustomed to revere. Of all these
feelings, though they be but the feelings of Protestants, we have
endeavoured for a moment to divest ourselves; and, contemplating•
the measure with the cool indifference of neutral politicians, as politi-
cians we say, that never was there devised a measure more calculated
to create in Ireland the elements of fierce and—unless by the ex-
tirpation of Protestants—interminable strife—to perpetuate' the
moral and physical degradation of this wretched country—to sink
her wretched population still farther below the point at which ci-
vilization coamiences—and, by abandoning our country to the un-
controlled dominion of the bigot tyrants of the Romish Priesthood,
to crush forever the last hopes of her regeneration, and shake to
its very foundations the solid structure of the British empire."
Again—
" There was a time when British statesmen would not have dared
to put themselves in the infidel attitude of arbiters between Popery
and Protestantism, and profess themselves abstractedly indifferent
to both.. And still we talk of Protestant Eugland--,and her Pro-
testant constitution—and our PlT:Wawa ataie.. Let this measure
pass, and the wards aro- a mockery—the profession is hypocrisy—
England is Protestant no more—infidel she may be ; ready to make
common cause with any superstition with which a temporary con-
venience may dictate an alliance; but never more can England
claim the honoured name of Protestant. Her people will have
abandoned every principle for which their forefathers bled—her le-
giSlature Will have violated compacts as saerede s the right by which

- - the rule—her Monarch will have broken his coronation voi.vs—te
will have forfeited the right in abrogating the charter by ixhich. he ,
holds his crown. National Protestantism is the only title of the
House of Hanover to rule over us. Let this be interfered with,
and the government of William the Fourth is a usurpation. 'Who'
England ceases to be Protestant, the act of settlement is a nullity;
and, we repeat it, when Lord Morpeth's• measure passes, Eughwd
is Protestant no more."

Again—
" We know not-whether Lord Morpcth comprehended the mean-
ing of what he said ; but we know that the only meaning which his
words can legitimately bear is this—that he cares for no religion

Again—.
" Popery is the curse of Ireland. The conspiracies of the pea-
santry are adopted at the instigation of the priests."
need hardly put it tp an English public, whether it
be possible to conceive ,such sentiments as the above ema-
natino• from a rational individual ? When it is remembered allt' this fustian rant has reference to a Bill, the object
of which is to devote the surplus revenue of a sinecure
church to the education -of the people who supply such
revenue, the people of England cannot mistake the in-
flticnce Pretestantisin exercises over the'minds of its
Irish apostles. -

From the charge of general heaviness which we have
Vought against this Nurnl.)or of the Dublin University
M:lgazine, we must in justice except the review of Mark:
h un's " Avenged Bride," " Bores'of My Acquaintance,
and three rather pretty sonnets. •

• THE ASIATIC.JOUR2VAL.
Allen' anti Q'
We have here a mine of ',Mental wealth—the useful...
and the Aelightful are
'
ppily blended in this Number.. •
The natural respo7ces of
~
India, is the subject of the first
article,
11- '7"e only do justice to the writer in observing,
that h'
knowledge of the productions and capabilities Of
":*ur dominions in India qualify him fora faithful discharge
of the iinportaiit service which lie has undertaken to ren'
der to his country. We have only to remind him, that in
forming an estimate of the value of any kind of production
in British India, it is of the utmost importance to take
into account its effect, relatively with other productions,
upon the habits' and moral character of the natives. The
large amount of revenue which' May be raised for .a few.
years often tempts a hungry Government to seize upon tem-
porary advantages, without regard to the deterioration of the •
public morals, and the drying up of those rills of wealth
which imperceptibly swell the stream of national prospe"rity ,
: but a wise legislature will prefer the permanence 01,
the national income, coupled with the increasing prosperity
of the people, to all forced. accumulations of revenue, which
after. all bear.- no proportion to the future falling off, and t,
the disappointment' and 'distress thereby occasioned. Our
system of Indian policy must be in all respects a generous
one—a system which shall have for its primary object the .
civilization, and the civil and social security and happiness
of the native population. The " Spahis,'', is an- article which will be read with
much pleasure, and more profit by those who may not be in°
timately acquainted with the discipline of the native troops,'
in' India. The writer's acquaintance with • the characteris.'.
tics of the several castes, and his nice discrimination in,
pointing out those peculiarities Which some of them have
in' common, is admirably shown in the paper before us.
The effect of military discipline and an acquaintance with
European manners upon the prejudices of, the Hindoos,
offers a salutary lesson to all whose dittylt May be to
vise 'measures 'for the moral and religiods instruction of
the native inhabitants.

The article on the extension of the Chinese Empire is 0
complete epitome of the policy of that monarchy. With
the exception of a single chapter in Gutzlaff's very excel-
leut history, which treats of the internal Government of
China, we are acquainted with no treatise which discloses
such an accurate view of the present state of the Chinese
empire.