FRASER'S MAGAZINE

FOR

TOWN AND COUNTRY.

JANUARY, 1849.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

HE return of the season which leads merchants to balance their books,

I makes country-houses merry, and the owners of them anxious on the

subject of Christmas bills, naturally invites to a little friendly and familiar chat between us and that portion of the discerning public which is accustomed to look into the pages of Fraser's Magazine for its monthly supply of enter

tainment and instruction.

And first, as in duty bound, let us congratulate them and ourselves on having been permitted to reach another of Time's great landmarks with heads upon our shoulders. Probably neither party has gone through the year that is passed without some suffering. Apart from the domestic trials to which the most favoured are liable, individuals must more or less participate in the fortunes of the State; and the state of England cannot boast of having entirely escaped the fury of a tempest which has shaken down thrones elsewhere, and still keeps nations tossing and heaving like the billows of a stormy ocean. But thus far England and the readers of Fraser may rejoice in having ridden out the gale,-that their boat continues to shoot a-head of the sea, not only without shipping water, but, as it seems, with a constantly-increasing power to pass through the trough and rise again to the crest of each new wave, before time has been afforded to that which follows of breaking into foam. For example, it is no slight satisfaction to know, that, though times are undoubtedly very bad, they might have been worse. Our trade is stagnant, our operatives are out of employ, our public finances are in a state of almost unexampled embarrassment; we might have had Communist workshops set up by command of a Provisional Government, and a Republic supported by the bayonets of half a million of National Guards. - The Whigs still sit in the ministers' chairs, and blunder through the affairs of a United Kingdom, in the Queen's name, after a fashion. There might have been no crowned Queen to sanction the decisions of the legislature; or the kingdom might have been rent in twain, or else kept in a comfortless integrity by civil war. Let us be thankful for mercies which, however small as making up the sum of a people's prosperity, place England in striking contrast with most of her continental neighbours. Again, we continue to bear the burden of an Income-tax, which, when first proposed, was limited in its duration to three years. We might have had it doubled. It is certainly not the fault of our present rulers that it was not raised last April, from threeand-a-half to five per cent. In like manner the advantages promised by the repeal of the Corn-laws and the application of the free-trade principle to the commerce of the nation are still in nubibus. The price of bread has not materially fallen; our general exports do not appear to be increasing; pauperism is not diminished, either in town or country; and the saving of one hundred millions annually-which Mr. M'Gregor, the intelligent member for Glasgow, pro

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mised-has not been effected. Be it so. If bread be still dear, the agriculturists have escaped the ruin which they themselves anticipated; and the state of our general export trade seems to settle the point that, less than any other class in the community, they stand in need of protective duties. Besides, when things come to the worst, they generally mend; and we fancy that we see in the political horizon symptoms of a revival. The Whigs have been tried, and are found wanting. It is impossible that they can long hold office, hampered as they are with pledges which they find themselves unable to redeem; and our readers will probably think with us, that any change of government must be for the better.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of this desirable issue, it may not be amiss if we say a few words concerning ourselves;-referring both to what we have done since Fraser's Magazine first made its appearance, and to the part which it is our intention to play for the future. In regard to the past, little more seems necessary than to remind the reader of the Confession of Faith' with which, eighteen years ago, we prefaced the earliest of our labours. It will be seen from that document, that we undertook to bolster up no faction; to pin our faith on no man, nor any set of men; to support, to the best of our ability, the established institutions of the country; and to deal with every public measure as it came before us, strictly according to its merits. We leave a discriminating public to determine whether or no our line of action has been based on this principle. That our leanings have been Conservative throughout, we freely allow. They are Conservative still; and we intend that they shall continue so. But that we took our tone from no leaders of party is proved by the fact, that we have alternately supported and assailed every cabinet which has endeavoured to manage the business of this country, from the year 1830 down to the present time. When we thought the Duke of Wellington no longer worthy of public confidence, we helped to write him out of office, even though we knew that he would be succeeded by Lord Grey. When Lord Grey and his colleagues outraged all decency, as much by their manner of carrying the Reform-bill as by the measure itself, we ceased to support them. We hailed the advent to power of Sir Robert Peel in 1835, though scarcely satisfied with some of his preliminary demonstrations; and contributed our share to break down the Melbourne clique which dishonestly drove him out again. Our tone has never varied since. We want honest men, true men, men of far-seeing and comprehensive minds, to rule over us. We object to the Whigs, because they are wanting in honesty, truth, and the power to do good, which depends upon these things. We object to most of their measures, because they are necessarily tinged with the shady colouring which is produced by extravagant professions in one direction while the professors are in Opposition, and a desire to do something in quite a different direction when they come into office. We object to Sir Robert Peel, because, be his merits in other respects what they may, he has on two important occasions deceived, if not betrayed, his own party; and we do not see how any set of public men can again repose confidence in him. We object to the Protectionists, because they speak, and sometimes act, as if the world were yet in the 1750th year of the Christian era, instead of being a century older. Still in each of these factions-in the Whigs, in the Peelites, and in the Protectionists, ay, and in the Radicals, too, where they lay aside their cant-we can discover some points to admire; and we are ready to support all or any of them, separately or in combination, as far as they will give us the opportunity. What we desire to see is, the Church, the Crown, the Peerage, and the Commonalty secured, each in its due rights; the Empire, as well in the colonies as within the limits of the three kingdoms, well governed; the Constitution kept from injury by the only process which affords a chance of keeping it so; and the People prosperous. Whatsoever minister shall give us reason to believe that he is resolved to effect these great objects, neither vainly striving to stop the course of events nor madly provoking change for its own sake, shall have our support. Whatsoever minister shall affect a different line, either by precipitating revolution or denouncing improvement, we will to the best of our ability oppose. Peace abroad, and a steady attention to the

real wants of the empire at home-these have ever been our watchwords, and we are not now going to change them.

Again, of our performances in science, criticism, poetry, and literature in general, why should we speak? They are patent to the world, which has long ago set its seal of merited approval upon them. A work which has been the medium of communication between the public and Father Prout,— which has had its pages enriched with the Doctor's Homeric Ballads, some of the best of Michael Angelo Titmarsh's treatises, and of Thomas Carlyle's most profound essays, which can boast of scientific__papers communicated by But we must not divulge family secrets. Enough is done when we state, that there is scarcely a man or woman in Great Britain and Ireland, eminent as a scholar, a poet, or a philosopher, but has, more or less, contributed to the pages of Fraser's Magazine; and that the list of such as pour upon us continually the riches of their brain knows no limit. It has been, too, our especial good fortune to have discovered and led into the light many a spark of genius, which, but for our fostering care, might have gone out in its obscurity. What do our readers think of Yeast, that strange, wild tale, which only the severe illness of the gifted author brought last month to an abrupt and temporary conclusion? We feel, that though but a promise of better things to come, it goes beyond the best of the performances of the best of our contemporaries; and we believe that the public generally is of our way of thinking. What do our readers think of our manner of discussing social questions, as illustrated in the Plague of Beggars, and other papers from the same pen? How have they relished our Few Words upon Music and the Modern Opera, our Reminiscences of Childhood, our Views of Edinburgh, &c. &c. &c.? We deceive ourselves if these, and many more like them, which modesty alone restrains us from particularising, are to be matched in the pages of any other periodical work of the day; and again we fancy that the public in general is of our way of thinking.

And now a word or two respecting the tone in which the various subjects taken up in Fraser's Magazine—whether they relate to politics, to literature, or to the arts-have been discussed in times past, and may be discussed again. We are not ignorant of the charge which has sometimes been brought against us, of having dealt more than was quite becoming in personalities. Perhaps there may be some truth in the libel; but let not such as lay it forget that the life of a Magazine, like that of a nation and of an individual man, has its phases. If there be any good stuff in it at all, it begins its career impetuously. Strong in its impulses, earnest in its views, it lashes out to the right and left, wherever there may seem to be wrong which requires correction, or cant that demands exposure. And, like the inspired youth, it generally sacrifices every other consideration to the accomplishment of the object more immediately sought. But time brings experience, and experience teaches wisdom, of which one of the most obvious precepts is this, that even a good end may be missed or marred through indiscretion in the choice or use of the means of seeking it. It will accordingly be found, that within the last year and a half the Fraserians, as they have ceased to attend imaginary symposia and to drink gallons of imaginary punch, so they have learned to temper their wit, that it might tell on men's principles of action, without unnecessarily wounding their self-love or ruffling their tempers. Blockheads who thrust themselves into situations for which neither Nature nor Education has fitted them, need not, it is true, expect to be spared. But the practice of calling hard names and imputing unworthy motives the Magazine has abandoned, and is not likely, under its present management, to return to it.

Finally, it remains for us to assure our readers, that whatever we can do to instruct and amuse them, and to promote their moral improvement, shall be done. We go to our work on this the first day of a new year with spirits neither damped by painful retrospect of the past, nor clouded by distrust of the future. We flatter ourselves that our monthly bill of intellectual fare will be found good, and make no doubt that, long ere the close of 1849, our Public will have tried it largely and approved it fully.

MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.*

*The History of England from the Accession of James II. By Thomas Babington Macaulay. London, 1849. Longman and Co.

We must guard ourselves and Mr. Macaulay from the mistaken conception that may attend this assertion. His history is, in our opinion, pre-eminently a history of parties; but it is also something more. And the author's multifarious reading has enabled him to draw an interesting comparison between the present material condition of England and that which existed in the times of James II. See chap. iii. See, also, Mr. Macaulay's description of what he conceives to be the duties of an historian, vol. i. p. 3.