The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE DAY.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.
Blackwood this mouth opens with a review of
Zsc•hokke's work "On Death Punishment," and of
Captain Maconochie's " Book on the Management of
Transported Criminals." The author, in the very out-
set, admits the difficulty of the subject in the following
terms:—
" Reformatory punishment ! Alas, there is an incurable
contradiction in the very terms ! Punishment is pain, is de-
privation, despondency, selaction. But, would you reform,
you must apply kindness, and a measure of prosperity, and a
greater measure still of hope. There is no genial influence in
castigation. It may deter from the recommission of the iden-
tical offence it visits, but no conversion, no renewal of the
heart, waits on its hostile presence ; the disposition will remain
the same, with the addition of all those angry sentiments which
pain endured is sure to generate. No philosopher or divine of
these days would invent a purgatory for the purifying of cor-
rupted souls. No—he would say—your purgatory may be a
place of preparation if you will, but not for heaven. You may
make devils there—nothing better ; he must be already
twice a saint whom the smoke of your torments would not
blacken to a demon.
" We may rest assured of this, that the actual infliction of
the punishment must always be an evil, as well to mind as
body—as well to society at large as to the culprit. If the
threat alone could be constantly efficacious—if the headlong
obstinacy, the passion, and the obtuseness of men would not
oblige, from time to time, the execution of the penalty, for the
very purpose of sustaining the efficacy of the threat—all would
be well, and penal laws might be in full harmony with the
best educational institutions, and the highest interests of hu-
manity. But the moment the law, from a threat becomes an
act, and the sentence goes forth, and the torture begins, a
new but unavoidable train of evils encounters us. There is war
implanted in the very bosom of society—hatred, and the giving
and the sufferance of pain. And here, we presume, is to be
found the reason of the proverbially severe laws of Draco,
which, being instituted by a man of virtue and humanity,
were yet said to have been written in blood : he desired that
the threat should be effective, and that thus the evils of pu-
nishment, as well as of crime should be avoided.
Whatever is to be effected towards the genuine reforma-
tion of the culprit, must be the result, not of the punishment
itself, but of some added ingredient, not of the essence of the
punishment; as when hopes are held out of reward, or part
remission of the penalty, on the practice of industry, and a
continuance of good behaviour."
With reg ird to the punishment of death, the author of
this article is of opinion that it ought to be continued as
the punishment of murder, not for the effect which the
execution of the murderer produces on the depraved and
drunken mob, who assemble to witness it as they would
any other spectacle, but because, by the impression which
it produces on the mind of every man throughout the
kingdom that if he should, through sudden passion, or
the instigation of cupidity. be induced to take the life of
a fellow-creature, he shall, after having spent days and
nights in agony and fear, be, eventually, hanged up like
a dog amidst the scoffs of the mob, it presents to
the mind an antagonist idea most fit to en-
counter the temptation to the crime. With re-
gard to secondary punishment, the writer is not
inclined "to favour those inventive gentlemen who
would devise new punishments or revive old ones." In
his opinion, " a well-regulated prison, where the severity
of the task-work, the nature of the diet, the duration
and the strictness of the confinement, all admit of ap-
portionment to the offence, seems to include all that is
desirable in this matter of punishment."
Ile sturdily protests against Captain Maconnochie's at-
tempts to enlist the sympathies of his readers in behalf
of the transported convicts, but considers one of the sug-
gestions of the Captain as most valuable, viz., that the
time of imprisonment should be commuted for the quan-
tity of labour dote; by this menus he considers punish-
ment would be made more effective as a threat, and its moral
effect would be much improved, as it would lead the
criminal to acquire a habit of continuous industry. He
is little disposed to advocate either the silent or the soli-
tary syF tern, but considers it quite sufficient that the la-
bours of a prison should be conducted wish stern military
order, so as to make a prisoner feel that obedience
and submission are the only parts he has to act. The
observations in this paper are confessedly fragmentary,
but they are the observations of a writer of strong,
sound, practical, common sense, who has evidently
carefully considered the subject on which he writes.
This article is followed by a third series of specimens
of the Lyrics of Pushkin, the Russian poet. The Lyrics
in the present number are all of them exceedingly
spirited, and some of them elegantly beautiful. They
are exqusitely translated. Russia is happy in having
such a poet, and Pushkin is most happy in having such
a translator. " Marston ; or, the Memoirs of a States-
man," gives us some spirited sketches of Pitt and his
contemporaries, just before the peace of Amiens, at
which period Marston represents himself as having been
a member of Mr. Pitt's cabinet. He is afterwards dis-
patched to St. Petersburgh as British Ambassador at
the Court of the Emperor Paul, and he gives a very vivid
description of the state of feeling of the Russian Court
and nation, which eventuated in the assassination
of the unfortunate maniac. The contempt and
hatred of Christopher North for Cockneys and
CockneydoW ; bath long been matter of public
notoriety, and in " A Letter from London by a
Railway Witness," the crutch of" the old man eloquent"
is exercised with terrific vigour on Railroad Committee-
men. stock-jobbers, and dramatic burlesques—" Graciosa
and Pereinet" and " Cinderella" being the especial vic-
tims of his wrath. " Priests, Women, and Families," is
an admirable review of Michelet's work, which, as the
reviewer justly observes :
" It deserves the anxious consideration of all who are in-
terested in the progress of European civilization, and may
teach a valuable lesson to many who may, at first sight, seem
to be far removed from the mischief which it seeks to remedy."
" My College Friends, No. 2. Horace Leicester," is a
graphic sketch of the life of a "rowing" man at Oxford,
and " Zumalacarregui," is an account of the career of
the celebrated Carlist chieftain, founded on his recently
published biography, by his old comrade in arms
Zaratiegui. The history Zumalacarregui furnishes
a most instructive comment on the Scripture
precept, " Put not your trust in princes."
North concludes this number by another of his delightful
specimens of the British critics. "We invite," he says,
" the people of these realms to admire with us the
critical genius of Dryden and Pope, displayed in their
matchless satires, Mac Flecknoe and the Dunciad ;"
an invitation that the people of these realms will most
assuredly accept with gratitude.

TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE (FOR
AUGUST). No. CXL.
An excellent " One Shilling's" worth. " Priests.
Women, and Children" is a sprightly notice of M
Michelet's work of that title. It contains some sound
philosophy, too, together with some fun. They who
imagine the influence of the Jesuits, in the direction
of the education of youth, and the consciences of the
female laity of their congregations, had better read M.
Michelet's observations on the subject, and the piquant
commentary of Tait. "Memoirs of Lady Hester
Stanhope"—a notice extending through fourteen double
columned pages of the Magazine, in addition to the
four consecutive reviews of the same work, which have
appeared in the Athenceurn, one would almost think
would leave little for the general ready r to collect from
the three volumes in which Mr. Colburn has published-
to the world the memoirs, personal and political, of this
very singular lady. For our own parts we must confess
that, notwithstanding all her Ladyship's egregious
vanity, her ridiculously exaggerated estimate of her
own mental powers—of her influence over the imprac-
ticable Emir of the Druses of Mount Lebanon, and the
far more masculine intellect and dispositions of her
kinsman, Mr. Pitt—we are still amused, at each fresh
perusal of these reminiscences, by some new touches of
original character and original opinions. But among
s,ll the strange and unsparing revelations of private and
history which the book contains, we are most
struck wilib the f Mowing announcement of Mr. Pitt, the
gigantic champion of royalty and legitimacy, in a new
character :
" To be enabled to act as the guardian angel of the
rest of the family, Lady Hester had established herself
with her uncle, Mr. Pitt, who, it apt ears, was a repub-
lican or Tom Paineite in theory. or in the abstract.' It
was a perilous crisis ; and Lord Stanhope was not out of
danger of arrest as his daughter believed. Were not
Lord Thanet, Ferguson, and some more of them thrown
into gaol ? and I said, If my father has not a prop
somewhere, be will share the same fate ;' ard this was
one of the reasons why I went to live with Mr. Pitt. Mr.
Pitt used to say, that Tom Paine was quite in the right ;
but then he would add, What am I to do ? If the
country is overrun with all these men, full of vice and,
folly, 1 cannot exterminate them. It would be very well,
to be sui e, if every body had sense enough to act as they
ought ; but, as things are, if I were to encourage Tom
Paine's opinions, we should have a bloody revolution ;
and, after all, matters would return pretty much as they
were.' But I always asked, What do these men want?
They will destroy what we have got, without giving us
anything else in its place. Let them give us something
good, before they rob us of what they [we ?] have. As
for systems of equality,: every body is not a 'Tom Paine.
Tom Paine was a clever man, and not one of your
hugger muggsr people, who have one day one set of
ideas, and another set the next, and never know what
they mean.' lam an aristocrat, and I make a boast of
it. We shall see what shall come of people's conun-
drums about equality."
Chapters of " Passages in the History of Knockarow"
continue to evince considerable powers of description,
and a fund of Irish humour. "Servia, the Youngest
Member of the European Family''—the very pleasant
review of Mr. Paton's very agreeable book of that de-
signation ; and the papers on the " Life of Jean Paul
Richter," and on " The Works of De La Mottee
Fouqt " are all calculated to sustain the reputation of
this agreeable miscellany. As to the latter, we do not
think the selection of " Theodolf the Icelander," as a
specimen of the great powers of a most inventive no-
velist, as particularly happy. The story is full of fine
passages, but it has really much of the weariness and
length of the Icelandic winter it so picturesquely
escribes.

FRASER. •
In an article, entitled " Tory Policy," Fraser males
the most ingeniously damaging defence of Sir R. Peel's
Maynooth grant that can well be imagined. Reduced
to a aeries of propositions the defence amounts to this :
The Revolution of 1688 was a Whig measure, James
11. was a Tory King, Sir Robert Peel, in his policy as
regards the Roman Catholics, is undoing all that was
done at the Resolution, and is treading in the footsteps
of James 11., therefore Sir R. Peel is a consistent Tory.
Now, we desire not to be misunderstood; we approve of
the increased grant to Maynooth, because it is just and
politic—and justice and sound policy are synonymous
terms ; but if we wished to
"Damn with faint praise—assent with civil leer,
And though not sneering, teach the rest to sneer."
Were we of those who
" Willing towound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike,"
we should, most assuredly, compliment Sir IL Peel on
treading in the footsteps of the last of the Stuarts.
Why, the "godless" cry of the Inglises, ANlales, et hoc