The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-13 00:00:00

TUE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENIG, MAY 13 1845.

fitted up, and used as poor-houses, till the wants and con-
venience of the parish or union are ascertained.
3. That the possession of land, under the circum-
stances and to the extent above alluded to, be held a
bar to parochial relief being afforded to any one residing
upon it, and
4. That some reasonable limit of so much in the
pound on the nett or gross rental of the parish be fixed
as that beyond which poors rate shall in no case be
leviable ; and that this limit be varied in different pa-
rishes in the ratio of their rentals, which generally
afford a fair indication of their relative circumstances.

These amendments, if I may, without great presump
tion, so style them, appear to me indispeusablc to pre-
vent consequences, which, I fear, are hardly contem-
plated, and which, I am sure, you do not desire.
I am well aware that there are many other aspects
in which the whole of this subject may be viewed, but 50
much has been addressed to the public, nod may con-
tinue to be so, with reference to these, that I gladly
confine myself to that which has more specially given
rise to the foregoing remarks.
I have striven to give to the subject of these an accu•
rate, and, I hope, an impartial, examination ; and now,
in common with others, await, in deep and natural
anxiety, the final resolve of the Legislature upon this
momentous subject.—l have the honour to be, my dear
Lord, yours very faithfully,
GEORGE DEMPSTER.
Skibo Castle, April, 1845.

LITERATURE.

THE NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. No. V.

The writers in this new periodical would consult
their interests better, if they adhered to the topics
on which they profess to comment, and forgot alto-
gether the theological opinions of the editor, and the
parties with whom it originated. We have no means
of knowing who got up this rival of the Edinburgh,
or who are the chief contributors, but report says
that they belong to the Free Church of Scotland, and
that Dr. Chalmers and Sir David Brewster are its
chief patrons. We should infer as much, however,
without any other authority than internal evidence,
for the train of argument on church matters, and
the conclusion of arguments on other matters, are so
evidently tinged with the peculiar doctrines of the
party, that we can hardly doubt it is a Non-intru-
sionist Review. There can be no objection to this.
Every sect and party have a right to establish an
organ for themselves, and the public have no reason
to complain of articles in accordance with the views
of the editors ; but the public have a right to con.-
plain when they are led astray by skilful devices, and
a conclusion is inferred not founded upon reasoning,
or any way connected with the question under dis-
cussion. We remember no instance of such a glaring
departure from the usual course of discussion, as is
exhibited in the first article of this Number. It is
evidently written by the Principal of St. Salvator
and St. Leonard. No man in the country is so
well acquainted with the subjects to which it refers—
he is versed in the occult sciences—he knows
well the theory of optics—has made many important
discoveries in that branch of knowledge, and estab-
lished a title to pre-eminence which no man in this
country or France can dispute ; but why does he
look beyond his object ? why intrude his peculiar the-
ological notions on readers while discussing a subject
that may have some connexion with the mountains anti
the man of the moon, but none whatever with May-
nooth and Non-intrusion. He has founded the article
on a work of Salverte's, a French philosopher, pub-
lished some fifteen years ago, entitled " An Essay on
Magic, Prodigies, and Miracles," and has treated these
interesting subjects, if Lot profoundly, at all events in
a popular manner, and well calculated to throw doubts
on pretended miracles, to destroy the delusions pro-
duced by wizards and conjurors, and to excite the in-
quisitive mind to think well before it believes. The
introduction to the article is splendid, the explanations
of magical operations and delusions interesting and in-
structive, and some of the descriptions of modern dis-
coveries are in admirable keeping with the extraordi-
nary results of science and art which distinguish
the present age above all others. 'We have read many
descriptions of the effects produced by steam, but
none at all to be compared to this, which combines
the highest flights of poetry with universally admitted
facts :

" The mighty steam•engine—whether we view it in
its individual grandeur or in its universal dominion over
all inferior machinery—must ever be the great autocrat
of the mechanical world. How"wide are its provinces—
how extensive its fields of enterprise—how numerous
its subjects, and how diversified their aims! Over the
ocean and the estuary, across the inland sea and the
mountain lake, along the sinuous river and the placid
stream, it passes in majestic sweep like the vapour-tailed
comet athwart the planetary domains, dispensing bles-
sings in its course, and gifts yet unrecognised by the
recipients of its bounty. The merchant and the tra-
veller, the naturalist and the voluntary exile, the philan-
thropist and the ambassador of heaven, are borne with
speed and safety to the scenes of their respective labours.
Man meets man, interchanging the works of their hands
or the produce of the soil. Antipodes, who have hitherto
been planted with foot opposite to foot, now stand in
parallel intercourse and craniological proximity. The
white man and the black, the serf and the freeman, the
liberated slave and his repentant master, commune on
each other's sufferings and aspirations, and prepare for
that reign of peace which is gradually evolving from
the mysterious cloud that now overhangs the nations.
Nor are its labours less marvellous and less benevolent
within the more limited range of our daily interests and
observation. Here it stands at the mine head disem-
bowelling the earth of its treasures—there delivering it
from its superfluous waters, or depriving it of its dele-
terious or explosive atmosphere. Here it has fixed its
abode in the factory, giving life and motion to the va-
rious combinations of art which prepare for our use the
necessaries and luxuries of life—there it takes its loco-
motive flight along our pathways of iron, shortening
time and space, and uniting in one brotherhood the
most distant and dissevered members of the common-
wealth. Wherever, indeed, its throne is reared it exer-
cises a beneficent sovereignty, feeding and clothing man,
subjugating the material world to his use, and summon-
ing all his intellectual powers to make new demands
upon its liberality, and draw new prizes from its trea-
sure house."

After such beautiful writing and such scientific
demolitions of long cherished delusions, who would
have expected that the whole disquisition should have
ended in Non-intrusion and Maynooth ? No magic
ever produced such an unexpected change ; but Sir
Isaac Newton, after astonishing the world by his dis-
coveries, spent the remainder of his life ist the vain
attempt to unravel the mysteries of the Apocalypse,
and fortune delights in humbling the mighty
:-
1! Valet ima salmis

Mutare et insignem attenuat deus,
Obscura promens ; hint apicem rapax
Fortuna cum stridore acuto
Sustulit; hic posuisse gaudet."
We subjoin the conclusion of the article as confir-
mation of the poet's wor3s
" The transition from the supremacy of knowledge
to the decline of its power, and from ecclesiastical to
civil rule, is one of the most extraordinary phases of
modern times. As science has become more valuable to
the State, she has, in the same proportion, sunk in in-
fluence and esteem; and as religion has become more
pure and simple, she has, even in a higher ratio, been
shorn t,f her inherent and inalienable rights. An oli-
garchy of wealth has replaced the nobler oligarchy of
knowledge, and a conclave of statesmen has usurped
the hierarchy of the Church. To compensate for mis-
government, or to quell turbulence, or, perchance, to
purchase a temporary quiet, error, intellectually de-
basing and spiritually fatal, is about to be fostered and
endowed, and that system of faith which claims a sove-
reignty over things temporal as well as eternal, is to be
sustained by those very men Who have denied to a Pro-
testant Church its spiritual jurisdiction, and whose
hands are yet scarred with its destruction. If, in their
thirst for power, hoatile factions shall combine in sup-
port of an idolatrous creed, while Protestant truth en-
joys
but a partial toleration, it is time that the host of
evangelism should be marshalled for the combat. The
shadow of the coming conflict is already cast before us:
Revelation has predicted the collision, and woe be to
those who are blind to its indications, or who shrink
from the stern duties which they impose."
This Number contains an impartial review of
the writings of Charles Dickens ; a useful Essay on
the Improvement of Land; a graphic description of
Prince Polignac and the French Carlists, in which
Maynooth again figures ; and concludes with the
" Past and Present Policy of England towards Ire-
land, where, of course, Maynooth appears in most
conspicuous characters. Of that we do not complain,
it is in its proper place, but we complain that
able writers should mislead their readers by forcing
certain dogmas upon them at every turn, and lower
themselves in public estimation by imitating the mer-
cenary poets who sing the praises of Macassar oil.

" A hum of half-suppressed conversatian which would
attempt to conceal the excitement, which some of the
greatest of them have since acknowledged, fills that
brilliant assemblage ; that sea of plumes, and glittering
stars, and gorgeous dresses. Hush ! the portals open
She comes ! The silence is as deep as that of a noon-
tide forest. Attended for a moment by her royal mother
and the ladies of her court, who bow and then retire,
Victoria ascends her throne ; a girl, alone, and for the
first time, amid an assemblage of men.
" In a sweet and thrilling voice, and with a composed
mien which indicates rather the absorbing sense of
august duty than an absence of emotion, the Queen
announces her accession to the throne of her ancestors,
and her humble hope that Divine Providence will guard
over the fulfilment of her lofty trust.
" The prelates and captains and chief men of her
realm then advance to the throne, and kneeling before
her, pledge their troth, and take the sacred oaths of
allegiance and supremacy.
" Allegiance to one who rules over the land that the
great Macedonian could not conquer ; ard over a conti-
nent of which even Columbus never dreamed ; to the
Queen of every sea, and of nations in every zone.
" It is not of these that I would speak ; but of a na-
tion nearer her foot stcol, and which at this moment
looks to her with anxiety, with affection, perli,ps with
hope. Fair and serene, she has the blood and beauty of
the Saxon. Will it be her proud destiny at length to
bear relief to suffering millions, and with that soft hand
which might inspire troubadours and guerdon knights,
break the last links in the chain of Saxon thraldom ?"

THE STATE OF THE PEASANTRY.
" Their wretched tenements seldom consisted of more
than two room:, in one of which the whole family, how-
ever. numerous, were obliged to sleep, without distinction
of age, or sex, or suffering. With the water streaming
down the walls, the light distinguished through the roof,
with no hearth even in winter, the virtuous mother in
the sacred pangs of childbirth, gives forth another vic-
tim to our thoughtless civilization ; surrounded by three
generations whose inevitable presence is more painful
than her sufferings in that hour of travail ; while the
father of her coming child, in another corner of the
sordid chamber, lies stricken by that typhus which his
contaminating dwelling has breathed into his veins, and
for whose next prey is perhaps destined, his new-
born-child.

" The town of Marney was a metropolis of agricul-
tural labour, for the proprietors of the neighbourhood
having for the last half century acted on the system of
destroying the cottages on their estates, in order to be
come exempted from the maintenance of the population,
the expelled people had flocked to Marney, where, during
'the war, a manufactory had afforded them some relief.
though its wheels had long ceased to disturb the waters
of the Mar.
" Deprived of this resource, they had again gradually
spread themselves over that land which had as it were
rejected them; and obtained from its churlish breast a
niggardly subsistence. Their re-entrance into the sur-
rounding parishes was viewed with groat suspicion;
their renewed settlement opposed by every ingenious
contrivance; those who availed themselves of their la•
hour were careful that they should not become dwellers
on the soil; and though, from the excessive competition,
there were few districts in the kingdom where the rate
of wages was more depressed, those who were fortunate
enough to obtain the scant remuneration had, in addition
to their toil, to endure each morn and even a weary
journey before they could reach the scene of their la•
bour, or return to the squalid hovel which profaned the
name of home. To that home, over which Malaria
hovered, and round whose shivering hearth were clus-
tered other guests besides the exhausted family of toil
—Fever, in every form pale Consumption, exhaust-
ing Synochus, and trembling Ague,—returned after
cultivating the broad fields of merry England the bold
British peasant, returned to encounter the worst of dis-
eases with a frame the least qualified to oppose them; a
frame that subdued by toil was never sustained by animal
food; drenched by the tempest could not change its
dripping rags; and was indebted for its scanty fuel to
the windfalls of the woods."
THE WELLINGTON ADMINISTRATION.
as an adventurer, had
: long kept down by the
t
" From the death of Mr. Pitt to 1825, the political
history of England is a history of great events and little
plebeian
men.Tahreisrtiosceroatc3Mr. Canning,
p ninigt
shaken parties to their centre. His rapid disappearance
from the scene left both Whigs and Tories in a state of
disorganization. The distinctive principles of these con-
nexions were now difficult to trace. That period of
public languor which interyenes. between the breaking
up of parties and the formation of factions now transpired
in England. An exhausted. sensualist on the throne,
who only demanded from his ministers repose, a volup-
tuous aristocracy, and a listless people, were content, in
the absence of all public conviction and national passion,
to consign the government of the country to a great man,
whose decision relieved the sovereign, whose prejudices
pleased the nobles, and whose achievements dazzled the
multitude.
" The Duke of Wellington brought to the post of first
minister immortal fame ; a quality of success which
would almost seem to include all others. His public
knowledge was such as might be expected from one
whose conduct already formed an important portion of
the history of his country. He had a personal and inti-
mate acquaintance with the sovereigns and chief states-
men of Europe, a kind of information in which English
ministers have generally been deficient, but without
which the management of our external affairs must at
the best be haphazard. He possessed administrative
talents of the highest order.
" How comes it then that so great a man, in so great
a position, should hare so signally failed ? Should have
broken up his government, wrecked his party, and so com-
pletely annihilated his political position, that, even with his
historical reputation to sustain him, be can since only
re-appear in the councils of his Sovereign in a subor-
dinate, not to say equivocal, character ?
" With all those great qualities which will secure him
a place in our history, not perhaps inferior even to Marl
borough, the Duke of Wellington has one deficiency
which has been the stumbling-block of his civil career.
Bishop Burnet, in speculating 'on the extraordinary in-
fluence of Lord Shaftesbury, and accounting how a
statesman, so inconsistent in his conduct and so false to
his confederates, should have so powerfully controlled
his country, observes, ' His strength lay in his know•
ledge of England.'
u• Now, that is exactly the kind of knowledge which
the Duke of Wellington never possessed. .
This not the occasion on which we shall attempt
to do justice to Et theme so instructive as the admi-
nistration of his Grace. Treated with impartiality and
sufficient information, it would be an invaluable contri-
bution to the stores of our political knowledge and
national experience. Throughout its brief but eccen-
tric and tumultuous annals we see continual proof, how
important is that knowledge 'in which lay Lord
Shaftesbury's strength.' In twenty- a
people being four months we find
an aristocracy estranged, without
con-
ciliated ; while on two several occasions, first, the pre•
judices, and then the pretensions, of the middle class,
were alike treated with contumely."

THE TORY PARTY.
" But we forgot, Sir Robert Peel is not the leader of
the Tory party: the party that resisted the ruinous
mystification that metamorphosed direct taxation by the
Crown into indirect taxation by the Commons; that de-
nounced the system that mortgaged industry to protect
property; the party that ruled Ireland by a scheme which
reconciled both churches, and by a series of Parliaments
which counted among them Lords and Commons of both
religions; that has maintained at all times the territorial
constitution of England as the only basis and security
fur local government, and which, nevertheless, once laid
OD the table of the House of Commons a commercial
tariff, negotiated at Utrecht, which is the most rational
that was ever devised by statesmen; a party that has
prevented the Church from being the salaried agent of
the State, and has supported through many struggles,
the parochial polity of the country which secures to
every labourer a home.
" In a parliamentary sense, that great party has ceased
to exist; but I will believe it still lives in the thought
and sentiment and consecrated memory of the English
nation. It has its origin in great principles and in noble
instincts; it sympathizes with the lowly, it looks up to
the Most High; it can count its heroes and its martyrs;
they have met in its behalf plunder, proscription, and
death. Nor when it finally yielded to the iron progress
of oligarchical supremacy, was its catastrophe inglorious.
Its genius was vindicated in golden sentences and with
fervent arguments of impassioned logic by St. John, and
breathed in the intrepid eloquence and patriot soul of
William Wyndham. Even now it is not dead, but
sleepeth; and in an age of political materialism, of con-
fused purposes and perplexed intelligence, that aspires
only to wealth because it has faith in no other accom-
plishment, as men rifle cargoes on the verge of ship-
wreck, Toryism will yet rise from the tomb over which
Bolingbroke shed his last tear, to bring back strength to
the C
hroiays 0
nn Cron, liberty
one
duty—tosubject,tothere sec
u the social welfare of and to announce that
power
the People."
The Times makes the following remarks on these
interesting volumes
"
This is another of D'lsraeli's brilliant political novels.
Without being in any way a repetition of Coningsby," it
bears a close resemblance in many particulars. The
great subject-matter is the same, and many of the public
characters who figured in the first work are made again
to play their parts in this. But, though the ground
traversed, the ideas and mode of reasoning, and the lan-
guage, are all very similar, yet, so great is the power of
the author, that the impressions produce upon the
reader's mind by a perusal of the volumes before us are
as vivid and fresh as if " Coningsby" had never issued from
the press. The writings of Mr. Disraeli, as do his
speeches, bristle with points.
hostility towards false pre-
They display much acute
observation, great knowledge of individual character,
i:ls.arged and generous s) mpathy
tthenesii,uiomstar
hypocrisy.,
RS a natural con-
oupnpdression and wrong.
serq
ut
cper
cordial
rodri
atlh
ien
du ni rattrrai tact,
The great object of.the work is
i o lay bare the frame-
work of modern English society, n the largest sense of
that word. Mr. D'lsraeli, with a quick perception and
a strung hand, thrusts aside the draperies with which it
is concealed, and exposes to the gaze the unsoundness
and defermity of many Pt. its parts, The false r,Qitlee
in which the vi,r;!',7ls classes a the cotnmuni;•:•' '
s[eiiat.ion to each other, tb-
"arshness with which
our social system i;." many respects acts upon the masses,
he discusses with great talent and boldness. He exposes
with biting sarcasm the political science of a certain
class of our public men, who, acting upon no enlarged
experience, never having deeply studied the true history
and the genius of the people of England, and therefore
ignorant of their real requirements, would rule this
realm upon a hand•to-mouth system, without regard to
any general principles or to any fixed plan.
The author evidently regards the Revolution of 1688
with no favourable eyes. lie affirms that the real cause
of the invasion was financial. The Prince of Orange
found the resources of Holland inadequate, and deemed
that nothing but such a Constitution as the
could have illta credit thst is necessary to raise such

sums as a great war requires. When he came, the
result was, that the Dutch system of finance was intro-
duced into this country—namely, that of mortgaging
industry in order to protect property. This might have
done for Holland, but was injurious to such a country as
England. It is essentially unjust ; it demoralises and
finally ruins the people. Such is Mr. D'lsraeli's view
of the matter. But in addition to this system of finance,
the Revolution laid the foundations of that aristocratical
influence, shared among a few of the great families of
the kingdom, which gradually augmented to such a
degree, as at length to overshadow the throne, and to
control its occupier. We will allow Mr. D'lsraeli to de-
scribe in his own words the condition of this oligarchy,
called by him " the Venetian party," towards the end of
the last century :
" The situation of the Venetian party in the wane of
the eighteenth century had become extremely critical.
A young King was making often fruitless, but always
energetic, struggles to emancipate his national royalty
from the trammels of the factious Dogeship. More
than sixty years of a Government of singular corrup
tion had alienated all hearts from the oligarchy ; never,
indeed, much affected by the great body of the people.
It could no longer be concealed that by virtue of a
plausible phrase power had been transferred from the
Crown to a Parliament, the members of which were
appointed by an extremely limited and exclusive class,
who owned no re!ponsibility to the country, who debated
and voted in secret, and who were regularly paid by the
small knot of great families that, by means of this
machinery, had secured the permanent possession of the
Kings treasury. Whiggism was putrescent in the
nostrils of the nation ; we were probably on the eve of
a bloodless, yet important revolution; when Rockingham,
a virtuous magnifico, alarmed and disgusted, resolved to
revive something of the pristine purity and high-toned
energy of the old Whig connexion, appealed to his 'new
generation' from a degenerate age, arrayed under his
banner the generous youth of the Whig families, and
was fortunate to enlist in the service the supreme genius
of Edmund Millie."