The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-01 00:00:00

TAIT'S MAGA LINE.

The more interesting articles in this number are
" Mitchell's Fall of Napoleon," and the " Politics of the
Month." We looked for something good in another,
entitled " Ireland and her Avators," but it consists
chiefly of extracts from " Saints and Sinners," supposed
to be written by the Private Secretary of Mr. O'Connell.
What Tait, however, says is to the purpose, and espe-
cially the remarks at the close of the brief notice :--
" What care the great body of the British people for the
Established Church of Ireland ? Is there one man in ten
among us who recognises the principle of ecclesiastical
establishments in any shape, who will hesitate for is
moment in replying to the plain question, what ought to,
be the established church of a Catholic country ?'
The " Letters from Naples" contain little or no news,
and merely repeat statements respecting the habits,
poverty. and idleness of the people, and the beauty of the
climate—facts generally known to English readers. In
commenting on the fall of Napoleon, the writer concurs
in the opinion of the author, that this great General had
been much overrated, that he bad committed faults with-
out number, that his crowning victory at Marengo, to
use the words of Cromwell, was an accident, and if there
had been active and fit generals opposed to him, his areal
must have been annihilated. Of this there can be little
doubt. The battle was completely gained, and had
Melas done his duty all the efforts of Dessaix and Killer-
man would have been in vain. Austria, in fact, was the
good genius of Bonaparte up to the Russian campaign ;
her wavering and vacillation, her want of moral courage,
carried him to victory, and the very same qualities 10
Prince Schwarzenberg had nearly decided the day in his
favour in 1814, when a million of enemies were fighting
against his troops on the plains of France. In a very
brief notice of " Sybil" we find these remarks:—
" Its tendency or avowed object—for the real one, after all,
is in the first place to entertain—is well understood. Mr.
D'lsraeli is for the hour the fashionable preacher of the cir-
culating library; and he suits his sermons to the times and
his audience, with much more tact than the author of Hawk'
stone, Hannah More, or even Miss Edgeworth."
We have room for only the following extract from the
political article. It relates to the banking and currency
system of Scotland, and is entitled to much weight.
We may remark that, in the same article, the magnifi-
cent demonstration of the zeal and resolution of the free
traders, afforded by the Covent-garden Bazaar, is re-
garded as the greatest stroke yet made by the League,
and to it is attributed the remarkable change which ap-
peared in the House of Commons on the motion brought
forward by Mr. Villiers:—
" The small space left us we wish to occupy with a few
words on a matter affecting Scotland alone, but affecting the
most vital interests of that country—Sir Robert Peel's inter-
ference with the banking and currency system of Scotland.
That interference we deprecate in the strongest terms, as
highly detrimental to Scotland, while useless to the empire
at large. Throughout the whole Scottish community, there
exists on this subject no difference of opinion. All classes,
Tories, Whigs, and Radicals; landlords and tenants of both
houses and landed property; rich and poor, creditors and
debtors, are unanimous in. deprecating any meddling with A
system of currency and banking which has existed so long,
and has been found to work so well. The suitableness, to e
different community, of the Scottish banking and currency
system, we are not called on to prove. Possibly in a com-
munity so large as that of England, so busy, so wholly ab-
sorbed, as are both public companies and private individuals,
with their own affairs, so ignorant and regardless of the af-
fairs of others, it might be productive of less unmixed be-
nefit. But here, in Scotland, where not only banks and other
public companies, but private individuals, have so much
more leisure, so much more curiosity, and know each other
so much better than do the two millions of London citizens,
our system of banking leads to none of the mischievous re-
sults which possibly it might produce in England. We have
had no such swindling company in Edinburgh or Glasgow as
the Independent and West Middlesex Assurance Company.
That monstrous and impudent fraud was openly carried on
in London; and it was reserved to a citizen of Glasgow to
expose and break it up. In Scotland we have no equivalent
to that rapacious and dangerous, although perhaps useful and
even necessary personage, the English bill-broker. Losses
by private loans are with us things comparatively rare; the
banker acting as the careful and intelligent agent between
those who have money to lend and those who require to
borrow."