The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-26 00:00:00

LONDON,

FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 26, 1850.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
CHRONICLE.—So Sir Charles Wood does not
know his own mind even yet, about this unlucky
Stamp Duties Bill ! We can quite enter into his
difficulties. Nothing more natural, under the cir-
cumstances, than the pathetic demand which he made
to the llouse last night for a week's postponement, in
order to give him " time to consider." This most un-
fortunate of Bills has become such a signal example
of his unhappy mode of dealing with the technical
business of his department, that we cannot be sur-
prised to find him as much puzzled about it as
the rest of mankind. By the aid of two radical
changes in its structure, by three essential
alterations in the scale of duties, by the abans
donment of nearly all the new formulas, and by
a succession of fugitive and conflicting emenda-
tions, the Government measure for the " repeal and
amendment" of the stamp duties has arrived at a
pitch of complexity which places it almost beyond
the reach of comprehension. We shall not, in offer-
ing a few further observations on the perplexed po-
sition in which the bewildered Chancellor of the
Exchequer now finds himself, recur to the precipitate
abandonment of the new phrase, "any matter or
thing whatsoever"—nor to the equally precipitate
withdrawal of the novel and vexatious regulations
with reference to the stamping of executed instru-
ments. Last Monday evening he had further con-
cessions to announce to the llouse. He no longer
intends, we then learned (though, of course, it is im-
possible now to b e quite sure of anything), to inter-
f-re with annuities and settlements, beyond the pro-
visions of the existing law; he was willing to adopt
certain important technical clauses suggested by Mr.
Mullings, and to acquiesce in the amendment
proposed by that gentleman on the subject of agree-
ments of bargain and sale. These are all, no doubt,
very excellent corrections; but their reasonableness
is so apparent, and their expediency is so striking,
that people of common sense can hardly forgive the
negligence which forced upon the public the disagree-
able task of agitating for the withdrawal of proposi-
tions so perfectly indefensible, so purely gratuitous,
and so essentially impertinent. With reference to
the amendment carried by Sir H. Willoughby for
reducing the stamp duty on bonds and mortgages to
a rate of one-tenth (2..) per cent., Sir Charles Wood
was not quite so complacent ; and even the modicum
of concession which he then expressed himself pre-
pared to make is already, pro tempore, withdrawn—
for he has received "so many communications," stating
" so many objections," that he really must take a week
to collect his thoughts. In effect, he was willing to
give his sanction to the letter, but not to the spirit, of
Sir 11. Willoughby's amendment. He said, on the
part of the Government, "We are willing to adopt a
rate of duty of Is. on bonds of 501., but we are not
willing to apply the scale of one-tenth per cent. to any
other class of transactions. We propose, therefore,
to introduce a modified scale of duties from 501. to
2001.; and then to assess one-fourth (55.) per cent.
on all sums from 2001. to 100,000/., upon which skim
the duty would, of course, amount to 250/. ; and
there the scale of assessment would terminate." To
what particular point of the scheme thus announced
Sir Charles Wood's present doubt applies, we are
not distinctly informed. Certainlyl as it stands,
it is singularly unsatisfactory. For it unfortu-
nately happens that, into a scheme which has been
brought before the House and the public purely
as an ad valorem plan—which rests the whole of its
claims to support upon the strength of the plea
that it is a laudable attempt to introduce the equit-
able principle of proportion into our stamp duties—
this alteration would introduce the glaring anomaly
of a scale of duties which violates the ad valorem
principles at both ends—but most conspicuously with
reference to those large transactions which the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer has expressed so much anxiety
to bring within the reach of the revenue. Sir Charles
Wood proposes to tax the borrower of 100,0001. to the
amount of 2501., and to tax the borrower of 500,000/.1
to no greater extent. But upon what ground ? Why
stop short at 100,000/. ? It is perfectly well known
that transactions of a magnitude far beyond 100,0001.
are by no means uncommon ; and surely, if the ad
valorem principle is to be saved from utter ridicule
—if it be not intended to afford a new and a further
justification to those who denounce the in-
justice of our fiscal system—there is not the
smallest reason why any arbitrary limit whatever
should be placed on the scale of duties.
If a man borrows a million of, money on mortgage,
let him by all means pay the same rateable tax as the
man who borrows the thousandth part of that sum.
The borrowers and lenders of millions, or even of half
or quarter millions, may not be very numerous—but
that is not the question. Let us have the scale of
duties perfectly fair upon the face of the statute. Let
no partiality be displayed to any particular class, or
to any particular transactions. The state will then
be able to say, honestly and openly, to all its subjects
—"
The law is perfectly impartial, and it is so framed
that it will reach the most wealthy as effectually as
the poorest of those who owe it obedience." The
only possible ground upon which a proposal can be
defended for departing from an ad valorem scale
in the case of the smaller transactions, is on the pies
of revenue. It may be contended, that unless a
larger rate of duty be assessed upon those
transactions which are the most numerous,
it will be impossible to raise the necessary amount of
revenue except by commencing the ascent from a
comparatively high point, and consequently exacting
such an amount of duty upon the more considerable
transactions as will in reality be prejudicial to the
true interests of the public. This is a line of argu-
ment which we carrperfectly appreciate. But it must
be used with discretion. There are certain cases
where the advantages of a low rate of assessment upon
small transactions are so palpable that any trifling
gain to the revenue, which might be obtained by a
higher scale of duties, is not deserving of considera-
tion. We maintain that bonds and mortgages fall
pre-eminently within that category. It is most
important that the rate of duty upon legal
instruments of this class should be as low
as possible, and that it should be at one
uniform per centage. If, indeed, the financial
necessities of the country forbade us to attempt
any change whatever in the existing scale of stamp
duties, we must bear the evil with as little impatience
as possible. But having a bona fide surplus to ex-
pend, there would be neither wisdom, consistency, nor
common sense in merely substituting one grievance
for another—in effecting an alteration which was not
an improvement—and in leaving to accident and the
future the accomplishment of a reform which we are
perfectly able to achieve at present. We adhere,
therefore, to our decided preference for Sir H.
Willoughby 's amendment of one-tenth per cent.,
to be applied to all sums raised by bond
or mortgage ; and we trust that, whatever, may
be the issue of Sir Charles 'Wood's renewed delibera-
tions, the House of Commons will adhere to it.
We feel the more confidence in contending for
the low scale of duties already sanctioned by the
House in the case of bonds and mortgages, because
we are convinced that Sir Charles Wood has very
greatly over-estimated the extent of loss to which
the revenue will be exposed in consequence of his
proposed reductions. '\\re could not have a stronger
confirmation of this conviction than is furnished by
the very papers which Sir Charles Wood has distri-
buted within the last few days in defence
of his original computation. These papers
contain a report and certain tables, supplied by the
authorities of the Stamp-office,relative to the
produce of those branches of the stamp revenue
included in the Government measure—more par-
ticularly of the duties on conveyances. Upon
these the Chancellor of the Exchequer expects
if
to lose 266,299/. per annum, the reduced scale of
assessment embodied in the Bill now before the llouse
should become law. Now we think that, without re-
sorting to any elaborate calculations—without the
assistance of either algebra or logarithms, and taking
the figures as they appear on the face of the official
document—we can shove good reason
i for believing
that an estimated loss of 266,2991. s very much
beyond the mark. In the papers from the Stamp-
office, the sum of 159,425/. is entered as having arisen
in 1848 from the sale of stamps of 10s. and 1/. each,
as the ad valorem duties on conveyances of real pro-
perty. That is to say, taing into account the nature
of the transactions to which these rates of duty apply,
it is assumed in these papers that there were 180,688
distinct conveyances of real property in one year, in
which the purchase money did. not amount to 50/.
We appeal to any person having an ordinary ac-
quaintance with this particular branch of practice
whether such an estimate is not perfectly inadmis-
sible. If peasant properties in the soil were as
common in this country as they are in Germany,
Belgium, or France; there might be some show of
reason for computing the number of transactions
under 50/. at the prodigious number of 180,688 in
the course of a single twelvemonth. But, consi-
dering the peculiar relation of real property in
this country to the class of small purchasers, we
feel fully convinced that Sir Charles Wood and
the Board of Inland Revenue have fallen into
a serious error in proceeding upon this cal-
culation. The truth is, that the great mass of
10s. and 11. stamps are applied to purposes utterly
distinct from the preparation of deeds of conveyance
for cottages and strips of land. And if Sir Charles
Wood will correct his table under the guidance of
some sagacious and practical man, who knows all
about " counterparts" and " followers, we under-
take to say that he will find himself reli▪
eved of an
amount of loss to the extent, at least, of 100,000/. ; in
other words, he will find that 1660001., instead of
266,000/., will amply cover any possible deficit in the
produce of the duties on conveyances. Here, there-
fore, in one item alone, there is a di▪ fference of
100,0001, which may be employed in rendering the
details of the Government measure more li▪ beral, and
the scales of assessment more just and self-consistent
TlMES.—Historians and essayists delight in flat:
tering the self-opinion of their contemporaries by ex-

traordinary anecdotes of popular delusion in less en-
lightened times. A kind of indefinite satisfaction
appears to be derived from contrasting the inferiority
of previous generations. The confidence with which
for many years together 5,000,000 English Protes-
tants believed themselves in bodily peril from 100,000
Catholics is a favorite instance of the kind. The
" loss of our eleven days" is another, when, upon a
simple correction of the calendar, grave divines ac-
tually lectured from the pulpit on the blasphemous
wickedness of interfering with the course of time,
and denounced the profanity which brought every
sinner in the kingdom nearly a fortnight closer to
his end. Mr. Macaulay, too, informs us that
the post when first established was the ob-
ject of violent invective, as a manifest con-
trivance of the Pope to enslave the souls of English-
men, and most books of history or anecdote
will supply stories equally notable. But we really
very much doubt whether any tale of ancient times
can match the exhibition of credulity which occurred
in our own country, and under our own eyes, within
these last twelve months. We need not enter upon
any narrative. Every reader's recollection will carry
him hick to last Christmas, when, from one end of
the kingdom to the other, there was a loud and steady
outcry against a projected " desecration of the Sab-
bath." Mr. Rowland Hill was introducing " Sunday
labour" into this decorous and religious country. Ile
had succeeded in inserting " the small end of the
wedge." He had asked for twenty-five additional
clerks on Sunday, and a few months would see this
pressed labour indefinitely multiplied, and all
ideas of Sabbath observance contemptuously fore-
sworn. Such was the belief, even amongst in-
telligent people. Meetings were held in all great
towns to record a protest against the iniquity,
and when the resistance proved unsuccessful, it
was plainly asserted that the national character was
for ever gone. As for the promoter of the measure,
he was a forsaken reprobate, who looked only to the
acceleration of day-mails without the smallest heed
to the fourth commandment. We have before us at
this moment a sheet of letter-paper, headed by an en-
graving of "Rowland Hill's New Chapel, St. Martin's-
le-Grand," under which title is depicted the General
Post-office on a Sunday morning, with all the symbols
of unholy industry and bustle. However, the measure
in question was carried out, and we will now, from
the official returns on the subject, inform the reader
in plain unadorned language how it originated, what
it contemplated, and what it has actually brought to
pass. More than two years ago the attention of the
Post-office authorities was directed towards the
means of abridging Sunday labour in the various
offices, and inquiries were instituted with this
object. While they were in progress Mr.
Hill succeeded to the secretaryship of a
certain department which brought the sub-
ject under his immediate care, and he pro-
moted with all his efforts the advancement of the
great end in view. Opinions were not altogether
concurrent on the matter, but a step was at length
taken, and on Sunday, the 6th of February, 1848,
the Post-office at Bath was closed for money-order
business on that day. The experiment succeeded, and
on the 13th of August in the same year the regulation
was extended to Leeds, and, six weeks later, to Bir-
mingham, still without inconvenience or complaint.
Fortified by these results, the authorities conceived
themselves competent to push still further their great
cbject of abridging Sunday labour, and the arrange-
ments above-mentioned were, at the commencement
of last year, extended to all offices in England and
Wales, so that 450 offices were relieved of a material
portion of their Sunday duties in a single day. Three
months more saw the same indulgence conceded to
Ireland and Scotland, by which 234 additional offices
experienced the same relief. Pending these trials
and successes Mr. Rowland Hill conceived a
plan fur abridging Sunday labour still more
considerably, and, indeed, to a great extent,
abolishing it altogether. The duties hitherto
suspended had been those of the money-order depart-
ment alone, but a scheme was now entertained of
greatly limiting Sunday deliveries, and of absolutely
closing the offices between the hours of ten and five,
or, in other words, from the commencement of the
morning service in churches till the close of the after-
noon. With this proposed limitation of deliveries '
was combined a regulation, long known to he de-
sirable, for the transmission of a certain class of letters
through London on a Sunday, which would, it was
thought, by giving very considerable accommodation
at a small cost of labour, tend to reconcile the public
to the cessation of those Sunday deliveries which
were now to be stopped. It was this proposal which
caused the outcry. Mr. Hill asked but for the tem-
porary service of twenty-five clerks as a present
means of relieving twenty times that number, and he
showed his reasons for anticipating that no mea-
sure could ultimately be more effective in
abridging Sunday labour altogether than that now
proposed. All this was in vain. He was,
as our readers know, decried, denounced, and
stigmatized as a Sabbath-breaker and appostate, al-
though his very propo,ition was actually one of a
well-considered series for diminishing Sunday labour
throughout the kingdom. Now, let the results be
marked, for certainly never was popular delusion more
conspicuously displayed. To begin with the parti-
cular incident complained of:—Mr. Hill had always
stated that the necessity for the extra labour would
he brief, whereas his assailants declared that the ex-
pedient would inevitably tend to nationalize Sabbath-
breaking and demoralize the whole State. On Sun-
day, the 28th of October, the additional London
force of 25 men was first employed ; on the 6th of
January following it was reduced to 13 ; on the 13th
of the the same month to 3, and on the very next
Sunday it was dispensed with altogether, having
effected its objects within the space of three
months. So much for the " evil" done. Now
let us see what good was brought by it. By the
device and execution of these measures 57G
provincial post-offices have experienced a total
positive relief of about 7f hours each Sunday, and
upwards of 4,000 dependent offices have received a
similar relief of about 7 hours. Estimated in relation
to individuals, the effect of the measures has been to
give to 5,629 persons an average Sunday relief of 54
hours each ; that is to say, nearly 6,000 people have
been relieved from nearly 6 hours' work every Sun-
day by the operation of a scheme which was denounced
as a deliberate encouragement to Sabbath-breaking
And profanity. Nor have the results ended here, for,
as if to complete the exposure, the new arrangements
have actually led to a discontinuance even of that
existing labour which they were described as aug-
menting in perpetuity. The Sunday force regularly
employed in the Post-office before the famous provisions
of Mr. Rowland hill's scheme amounted to 27 men. On
the first day of operations under the new system this, to
the scandal and horror of the public, was increased
to 52. To be sure, some 4,000 or 5,000 were re-
lieved in other quarters by the same regulation, but
this little compensation was altogether overlooked in
the great iniquity. But what followed i Not only
was this additional force dispensed with in Coto before
three months had passed, but its labours had even
contributed to lighten the lot of those who still re-
mained. So well did the new arrangements act,
that the work of the original force began gradually
and steadily to diminish, and we are now officially
told that " the whole Sunday force ordinarily em-
ployed in the London office will be reduced to five or
six men, which, even with the addition of the ten clerks
employed in the mail trains (and their duties will
intrench but little on the observances of the Sun-
day), will make a total force of little more than half
that employed before the 28th of October last." So
that the very expedient which, notwithstanding its
beneficial effects elsewhere, was obstinately condemned
on the simple ground of its augmenting Sunday la-
bour in a particular office, has actually resulted not
only in completely effecting all its proposed ends, but
in diminishing, by nearly one-half, the identical la-
bour which it appeared for a moment to augment.
We think the reader will admit that, upon the whole,
the outcry by which such a measure as this was re-
presented as a profane and godless scheme for abolish-
ing the observance of the Sabbath, has no equal in
history for prodigious and incredible absurdity. Even
vaccination, we believe, was never described as a
device for actually perpetuating small-pox, whereas
the most judicious and effective step in a series of
measures expressly designed to abridge Sunday la-
bour has been thus, in the middle of the nineteenth
century, represented, taken, and accepted as a deli-
berate stratagem for destroying the holiness of the
Sabbath-day. That the spirit which facilitated the
delusion was, in itself, honourable to the country, we
freely admit, but that the common sense of English-
men ho ul dt
o the n
bes strangelyoatin
o
creditableshould
intelligence, mlmisled
3 or fact
satisfactorylot
to the national pride.

THE SHAVERS.
The barber shaves with polished blade,
The mercer shaves when ladies trade,
The broker shaves at twelve per cent.,
The landlord shaves by raising rent,
The doctor shaves in draughts and pills,
The tapster shaves in pints and gills,
The farmer shaves in hay and oats,
The hanker shaves in his own notes,
The lawyer shaves both friends anti foes,
The pedlar shaves whcre'er he goes,
The wily merchant shaves his brother,
The pe,)ple all shave one another.

BOROUGH ECONOMY.—A meeting of the borough
magistrates was held in the council room on Thursday last,
specially, convened to consider the propriety of the charge
for issuing notices by circular from the clerk to the magis-
trates, of special and other meetings. This charge, it ap-
pears, has amounted to something like 401. annuallv. The
magistrates present at this meeting were the Mayor, J.
Brent, Esq., Alderman Plummer, Messrs. Dorman, Mount,
Sprakeling, and Wootton, and after some discussion, it was
proposed, seconded, and carried, that in future the clerk be
instructed to send the requisite notices free of expense. In
these times of financial reform, and when the burthen of the
borough rate is so severely felt, it is creditable to the magis-
tracy that they have resolved to reduce the municipal ex-
penditure whereyer practioble.-,Kent emerald,

DEATH of the POET LAUREATE.
(From Sou My's Ulverstone Advertiser.)

It will 'be seen by a- reference to our obituary of to-
day that one of the greatest luminaries cf our age and
country, one who has rendered illustrious this distrie,
the neighbourhood of his nativity, and the scene of his
labours and his triumphs, has departed this life soon

after attaining his 80th year.
William Wordsworth was born at Coekermouth, in
the county of Cumberland, ou the 7th of April, 1770,
and he has since lived and mused amidst the beautiful
scenery of our own locality. His father being law agent
to Lord Lonsdale, was in such circumstances as enabled
him to bestow upon his children a liberal education.
Wordsworth received the rudiments of his mental cul-
ture at Hawkshead School, and in the year 1787 was en-
tered at St. John's College, Cambridge. When he had
completed his studies and taken his academical de-
gree he made the tour of Scotland, accompanied
by his friend, R. Jones. It was about this
period, the period of Wordsworth's early man-
hood, that the revolution in France had attained its
grand crisis; and its influence upon the fiery imagitia-
nation and sensitive mind of Wordsworth was no less
forcible than that produced upon the buoyant and
vigorous, but as yet, untried heart and intellect of his
friends and frequent companions, Coleridge, Southey,
land Lloyd. The earnest thoughts that had been gene-
rated by his continued meditations upon this theme found
an utterance in his " Descriptive Sketches" and " Even-
ing Walk," both of which made their appearance in
1793. This volume, however, ended the republican
imaginings or Wordsworth. He had no sooner stepped
upon the sturdy platform of real life than he threw aside
the shadowy unrealities of his earlier dreamings, and de-
voted himself heart and soul to the loftier and grander
purposes of his being.
In 1797, Wordsworth had conceived a plan for the re-
generation of English poetry. In 1798, he published, in
conjunction with Coleridge, a collection of " Lyrical
Ballads." The majority of these productions were
from his own pen; the supernatural element of the
work was entrusted into the hands of Coleridge. This
book, so far from making converts to Wordsworth's
peculiar way of thinking, met everywhere with the bit-
terest contempt and ridicule. The Edinburgh Review
denounced his theory as " puerile," and stigmatised his
verses as a species of second-rate nursery rhymes.
There can be now no doubt that Wordsworth, in his zeal
to redeem the English muse from a corrupted and inane
phraseology, like other reactionists of a sterner cha-
racter, pushed his favourite theory too far. He sought
to establish in the place of a style whose chief charac-
teristics were lifelessness and false glitter, waning fainter
and fainter from constant repetition, one that should be
nervous, and simple, but one which would have proved
nevertheless, harsh, prosy, and ungenial. " The C,,111M011
language of common men, and the illustration of com-
mon incidents," which were totally incapable of any ex-
aggeration of feeling, found no favour either with the
public or with the critics. It was well, equally for
Wordsworth and for the interests of English poetry, that
the theorist overtopped his theory. The glories of the poet's
soul shone through the stiff and ungracetul drapery in
which he sought to enshrine it; and, amidst the bard and
unseemly details of the theory, there beamed the ever-
lasting beauty and the majesty of genius.
Still Wordsworth had among his readers a few who
comprehended him, and who were therefore his admirers.
They sympathised with his views; and through their
encouragement he was induced to publish other two
volumes of poetry in 1807.
It has been said that " Wordsworth's life has been a
poetic reverie" that he has experienced few of the
crosses and trials of the tuneful tribe. He married his
cousin shortly after his continental tour; and an ample
legacy lett him by a gentleman who entertained for his
genius the profoundest admiration, coupled with several
other bequests, placed him in a position of easy inde-
pendence. In 1814 appeared his great work, " The
Excursion," which sealed his certificate to immortality;
—that glorious book, which, according to a contemporary
critic, is " brimful of splendid thoughts clothed in splen-
did language, while it breathes a spirit of enlightened
benevolence and charity, which seem wondrous, grand,
and beautiful in their drapery of glowing eloquence
when tested by the poet's own theory." About the
period of the publication of the " Excursion," Words-
worth obtained the situation of distributor of stamps,
which office he retained during the lapse of 28 years,
retiring in 1842 upon a pension of 3001., while his son
filled the vacancy thus occasioned. In the year follow-
ing Southey died, and Wordsworth was appointed poet
laureate in his stead, in the April of the same year.
Several works followed the " Excursion," among which
may be mentioned the " White Dee of Rylstone;" and
in 1842 appeared a volume containing several poems,
written in the poet's early youth, accompanied by others
written in his old age.
It would be almost impossible to exaggerate or over-
estimate the importance of the influence which Words-
worth, in conjunction with Coleridge, has exercised
in the formation of the intellectual characteristics
of the present age. These two alone have
effected a complete revolution in our modes of
thought and of expression. Carlyle and Sterling,
and Emerson, with scores of others of our greatest
thinkers, have sat at the feet of Coleridge, that " old
man eloquent;" while the whole of the poetry that has
issued from the English press for years has been tinc-
tured and coloured by the genius of Wordsworth. Other
men have had their admirers and imitators, and have
formed their respective schools of poetry and philo-
sophy; but it has fallen to the lot of few to impregnate
with their thoughts minds great, and in somo respects
original, as their own; to witness the glorious imagin-
ings of their spirit caught up and reflected by such poets
as Tennyson, Browning, and Bailey ;—to behold the
current of their sentiments and reflections borne along
through the thousand diverse channels of the press to
the heart of a whole people, until their names are ren-
dered as " familiar to the tongue as household words."
And yet such has been the triumph awarded to the gr-
nius of Wordsworth. " During the last thirty years,"
says a ft iendly critic," the regenerative power of his ge-
nius has so operated upon the public taste, that the pure,
the simple and the good are now the more regarded
elements of poetry, while the Liras, Giaoura, and the
other distempered objects of a feverish imagination, are
ceasing to be among the attractive imagery of song.
Perhaps the most remarkable triumph of his genius is
its conquest over that very Review' which scorned and
sneered at him in the beginning of his career; for his
spirit now undoubtedly pervades this very organ which
scoffed at him so bitterly, and even rejected his language
as too puerile for the nursery."
For many years Wordsworth has enjoyel the inesti-
mable privilege of receiving that guerdon of love and
admiration while living, which are too frequently brought
into operation for no other purpose, alas! than that of
scattering garlands upon the tomb of genius. Thousands
of his admirers have made a pilgrimage to the poet's
sanctuary, Rydal Mount; and not a few have crossed over
from other lands to catch a glimpse of that great man who
has filled the world with his fame. The following is an
analysis of his powers and genius by his friend Cole-
ridge, the great poet, philosopher, and critic:—" His
genius and talents consist, first, in an austere purity of
language, both grammatically and logically; in short a
perfect appropriateness of the words to the meaning;
secondly, a correspondent weight and sanity of the
thoughts and sentiments won, not from books, but from
the poet's own meditations. They are fresh, and have
the dew upon them. Even throughout his smaller poems,
there is not one which is not rendered valuable by some
just and original reflection. Thirdly, the sinewy strength
and originality of single lines and paragraphs; the
frequent curiosa felicitas of his diction. Fourthly, the
perfect truth to nature in his images, and descrip-
tions, as taken immediately from nature. FiLhly, a
mediative pathos—a union of deep and subtle
thought with sensibility; a sympathy with man as
man; the sympathy indeed of a contemplator rather
than a fellow-sufferer and co•mate (spectator hand par-
ticeps), but of a contemplation from whose view no dif-
ference of rank conceals the sameness of nature; no in-
juries of wind, or weather, or toil, or even of ignorance,
wholly disguise; the human face divine. Last and pre-
eminently, I challenge for this poet the gift of imagina-
tion in the highest and strictest sense of the wore. In
the play of fancy, Wordsworth, to my feelings, is al-
ways graceful and sometimes recondite. The likeness
is occasionally too strange, or demands too peculiar a
point or view, or is such as appears the creature of pre-
meditated research rather than spontene les presenta-
lion. Indeed, his fancy seldom &splays itself us mere
and unmodified fancy. power he
But in imaginative
stands nearest of all modern writers to Milton and
üborro
Shakspere; and yet in a mind perfectlye which
uwed,
and his own. To employ his own words,
s,are
tit
once an instance and an illustration, he does indeed to
all thoughts and all objeActd s_
fd the gleam,

The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration and the poet's dream.' "*
Many passages in Wordsworth's writings might be
cited as affording instances and examples of some of the
deepest revelations of the soul of man that are to be met
with in the whole range of English poetry. The mind
of Wordsworth was pre-eminently subtle and penetrating.
He looks with a large eye on the world of universal
beauty, and goes behind all objects of all thought with
silent, gliding, footstep, giving man to all nature, and all
nature to man, and reproducing, with marvellous power
and accuracy, the very thoughts, of.which the mountain
and the forest, the flower and the oak, and all the eiverse
objects that crowd into the finished landscape are the
utterance and the expression. He saw that nature is
not final; that beauty, wherever it is seen, i 4
the ;footprint of Divinity: that the universe is the
realisation of the perfected idea of God; and all his
culture tended to thisione object, to give him insight into
tsis idea, that so he might command its correlative,
which is nature. He asked himself perpetually, " What
is the meanime which God symbolizes for me in these
varied forms of stars, and moon, and forest, and MOUE..
thin? " He stood at the feet of every fact, as thouji it
were the angel of God, until he bad drawn frtra it its
utterance. His life was a perpetual query, to which
Nature was the perpetual answer. He saw that a
spiritual cause lurks behind every circumstance—that
a new revelation is written in the heavens 'every night
by the finger of God—that a truth is swathed up to
every cloud that sails over the liquid arch—in fine, that
all nature is the publication of the all-perfect will ofthe
Deity. J. STANYAN 131c0.

LA W IN TELLIGENC E.

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, A.pril2.s.
(Sittings in Banco.)
THE QUEEN P. WILMBR AND EMIT!"

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL applied to the Court to
allow the hearing of this rule to stand over until after
an action-at-law had been tried. He said that this
was an application for a criminal information against
the defendants for an alleged libel upon the proprietors
of the electric telegraph. The very same alleged libel had
been published in the Morning Herald, and an action
had been brought against Mr. Chapman, the publisher
of that paper. The defendant in that action had put
a special justification on the record ; and it would be
convenient, if not just, that the rule for a criminal
information should not be made absolute until after
the jury in the civil case had pronounced a verdict on
the question whether the inculpated matter was libel-
lous or not.

Toe
COURT remarked that the defendants in the
criminal and civil cases were not the same, and that
the Court could not, according to any rules of practice,
make one proceeding dependent on another where the
parties were not the same in both.
Application refused.
THE QUEEN V. LATIMER.
Sir F. TIIESIGER said that he was instructed to
apply to the Court for a rule to Show cause la by a
criminal information should not be granted against
the defendant, who was the proprietor and publi'her
of the Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal, for
publishing in his paper, on the 7th of March last, a
libel upon the Sisters of Mercy. There were some
ladies who, a few years since, had devoted themselves
to the performance of offices of kindness and charity,
instructing poor children, and ministering to the
wants and necessities of the afflicted and the wretched.
They went to reside near Devonport; they resided in
one house, and they formed a society by themselves,
and they gave themselves the name of the Sisters of
Mercy. They were supported by funds drawn from
their own private resources, and their affairs were ad-
minstered by one among their number, by Miss Sel-
ion, who was recognised as their superior, and who
was invested with control over them. In addition to
the funds which they enjoyed from their own pri-
vate resources, they were aided by benefactions
and subscriptions from benevolent individuals,
some of which subscriptions were devoted by the
subscribers to specific purposes, while others were ap-
plied to promote the general purposes of the establish-
ment. in the autumn of 1849, they had an opportu-
nity of showing the sincerity of their motives and in-
tentions in the zealous performance of some of the
most painful of those duties which our mutual de-
pendence as well as our natural weakness render ne-
cessary. The cholera visited with great violence the
neighbourhood of Plymouth and Devonport; and then,
while many persons stood aloof with apprehension, or
stayed away from weakness and terror, they with the
most dauntless courage administered to the wants of
the sick, supported the drooping spirits of the dying,
and did not shrink even from performing those offices
to the dead which, though rendered by the best feel-
ings of our nature a kind of sacred duty, were yet often
most Lrepulsive. They felt themselves to have been
most miraculously preserved, and they desired in some
humble but expressive way to mark their sense of
gratitude for their preservation. They had been in
the habit of attending at the church of Stoke Damerel,
for the purpose of receiving the sacrament, and when
the disease passed from among the people, they, for
the reason already described, gave to that church a
communion service of plate. They had, then, no
anticipation that their motives would be misrepre-
sented and their sincerity be questioned, and even
their integrity in the administration of their funds
brought into dispute. They were, however, shocked
at reading in the defendant's paper a libellous article
about the presentation of this plate, in which this gift
was described as "an item on the credit side of the
14,0001. which the Sisters of Mercy had received
from the public," some account of the funds thus re-
ceived being described as something to be looked for-
ward to. The Sisters of Mercy caused a letter to be
written to the defendant, requiring him to retract the
imputation thus conveyed, and saying that they must
have an apology. This was rendered necessary by
the circumstance that the defendant in another article
referred to the imputations contained in the first.
The defendant sent an answer, in which he said that
the second had not a trace of a reference to the for-
mer article ; and to which he added, that if he had
the assurance of the Sisters of Mercy that the para-
graph was without foundation, nothing would afford
him greater pleasure than to say so. They had been
very reluctant to come into court, but they felt bound
to do so, and they looked with confidence to receiving
the protection of the law.
The Court granted the rule.
THE QtTEEN V. LATIMER.
Mr. Cockburn and Mr. Taprell showed cause
against a rule which had been obtained for filing a
criminal information against the defendant for pub-
lishing a libel in the Plymouth and Devonport Weekly
Journal on the Rev. George Raindell Prynne, the
minister of a district church in Plymouth called St.
Peter's Church. Tne article in question had imi.uted
that "not 100 miles from Eldad Chapel, where the
abhorrent doctrines and practices of Puseyism w e:e
being carried out," a young and unmarried lady had
had a present of a chill on New Year's-day. The
prosecutor had stated that his district church had
formerly been known as El lad Chapel, and was still
occasionally called by that name, and chiefly on that
fact assumed that he was the person intended in the
paragraph. Some other gentlemen had sworn to a
like relief, and apparently for a like reason. These
were the grounds of the application. The answer to
them was, that the defendant did not intend, and
never had intended, to apply the paragraph in question
to the prosecutor. At the time the paragraph appeared
the defendant was confined at home by severe illness,
and knew nothing whatever of the paragraph being
sent or inserted. Of course this fact did not relieve
him from legal responsibility for what was inserted in
his paper, but it did form a reason why the Court
should not use its extraordinary powers of interfe-
rence against him, but should leave the prosecutor to
the ordinary remedy by action. All the other cir-
cumstances of the case were in like manner favour-
able to the defendant. As soon as he knew of the
paragraph complained of he had communication with
the prosecutor, in which he related how the paragraph
had got into the paper, and he disclaimed in the
strongest terms any intention to assail the prosecutor,
to whose excellent private character he was ready to
pay a sincere tribute of approval ; for although ho
censured the prosecutor's mode of changing the forms
of the divine service at St. Peter's into a Puseyttic
fashion, he had never heard the slightest possible
stigma on the prosecutor's morality. The defendant
had offered to publish all this in any way the
prosecutor might wish, and had actually caused its
publication in the form of a letter in most of the
London and many of the country journals, ar:ld. in
Yet,mau withof theall
tphuisb,lictahteionpsrosoefcrtoerligiwouass
.nsooctiectoiens:
tented; but impelled, as the defendant believed, by
a spirit of hostility, on account of
.their e,rences on
the matter of these Puseyfte
.servi.ces at St. Peter's
Church, persisted in prosecuting him, notwithstanding
all the efforts the defendant had made to give the
prosecutor satisfaction on the subject of this article.
Under these circumstances, the defendant could only
repeat the statements he had made; and he now pro-
duced many affidavits from gentlemen of all classes of
opinions (some of them ministers of the Church of
England) in which it was plainly stated that they
never believed the paragraph to attach to the prose-
cutor, the more especially as some of the matters
stated in it, particularly a form of inquiry into the
charge, were things which could not possibly occur in
that shape in the Church of England. The Learr el
Counsel submitted that under these circumstances, the
defendant ought not to be subjected to the vexation
and expenses of a criminal information.
Sir F. TIIESIGER and Mr. MELLOR were about to
address the Court in support of the rule, but were
stoppe 1.
LOT 1 CAMPBELL—We think this is a fit case OR
which to take the opinion of a jury. The rule must
be absolute.
Rule absolute.

W 3 avrobiusr. -.
—The above
SIN AND SORROW, A TALE. 3 V"s' may_ be had
work is published this day by Mr. Colburn,
at all the libraries; also, now ready-2.
ton's Reginald Hastings, an Historical I%Riora.mnianliocet,
of Lite," 3 vols. ; 4. Miss Bremer's new domestic story, The
3. Pride and Irresolution, a second series of " The Discipline
Light-house and Life in the North, translated by Mary
3 vols
Hewitt, 1 vol., ss. bound; 5. The Scottish Cavalier, by the
author of " The Romance ofWar,"a
___ •; 6. The Wil-
Mrs. Margaret Maitland, mingtons, by the author of " Emilia Wyndham," 3 vols. ;
7. Passages in the Life of . of Sunny
—Copy of a aisreT —A Weakness of the Chest
Side, written
lbsyEherself.,] second edition, 3ols.
[ADvEitT
eca.reclobitsyoHn,ololofwwayynt'sePgeilnls:
in Holland, dated 24th
declara-
tionand Aofsthivraira.
August, 18 '9 :—.. I, the unticrsigned, declare that I have
aced)! cured of a weakness of
been perfectly the chest and difficulty
of breathing, by the use of Holloway's Pills. I had been a
sufferer for years, and was unable to get the least relief from
the various remedies I tried, until I took these inestimable
pins, and I invite all who may he similarly aftieted to use the
same remetiy without delay." Signed, "C. Zeit!en." They
may be taken in all cases of old coughs, recent colds, and
asthmatical affections.—Sold by all Druggists,and at Professor
Holloway's Establishment, 244;Strand, London.
THE INSURRECTION IN CEPHALONIA.—The total
number of persons tried by courts-martial during the exist-
ence of military law in Cephalonia was 65. Of these, 44
were sentenced to death, 2 to transportation, 7 to imprison-
ment, 11 to corporal punishment, 2 were acquitted, and 1
dischar4ed by reason of a loid trial. Of the number of
persons sentenced to death, 21 were executed, and 16 had
their sentence commuted. . The total number of persons
flogged in Cephalonia in the year 1849 was 80, and the total
number of lashes inflicted 2,987. During the same period
one newspaper editd and two contributors were expelled from
the island.
thlfGßATlON.—Upviards of four hundred Persons
left this city yesterday by the Liverpool steamers, on their
way to America. The tide of emigration flowing from our
shores seems to be increasing threetold from this part of the
country!..Waterford)fail.