county representatives by men that did not possess a shilling's worth in the kingdom whose highest interests were intrusted to their care. Mais nous allons changer tout cela, the constituency of Scotland will henceforth carry with it value as well as number, instead of being destitute of both. In the counties the constituency will in future consist of— 1st. The present electors, during the period of their natural life. 2nd. Owners in possession of houses, lands, or other heritable property, heritable debts excepted, of the clear annual value of L.10. 3rd. Life-renters of any such houses, lands or other heritable property. 4th. Tenants for life, or for sixty years without breaks, of houses, lands or other heritable subjects, of the clear annual value of L.10. 5th. Tenants for twenty years, of houses, lands, &c. of the clear annual value of £50. 6th. Tenants, being occupants, of houses, lands, &c. of the annual rent of £50 or upwards, held on lease of not less than five years. 7th. Tenants, being occupants, who have paid a grassum" of not less than £300, on any lease of not less than five years, whatever the rent may be. Joint proprietors and occupants have all the privileges of sole proprietors or occupants, provided the amount of the property or leasehold be sufficient to give a title to each. The precise addition, which will be made to the electors of counties, by extending the suffrage to the six classes of persons above described, is not very easily estimated. The number of persons, who hold the dominium utile of freehold property above £10 and under £400 valued rent, amounts, according to the parliamentary returns, to 7,754. Even out of these freeholders, therefore, not a few of the counties might obtain a respectable, if not a numerous, constituency. Dumfries would have, 500; Ayr, 600; Fife, 750; Lanark, 1,000; Orkney, without including Shetland, 1,300. The average for the various counties, would be about 370. Under the third head fall to be enumerated the parochial clergy, with the exception of sixty or seventy, whose manses are in boroughs, and who do not possess glebes-the dissenting clergy, for the most partand a few of the parochial schoolmasters. These three classes will amount to about 1,300. For calculating the number of the other voters of this class, or of any portion of those of the remaining classes, we possess no certain nor authentic data. To the number of farming tenants we might, perhaps, approximate. The valued rent of the entire kingdom somewhat exceeds £3,600,000; if from that amount we deduct one sixth for lands occupied by the owners, and allow one agricultural tenant on an average, for each £200 of the remainder, we shall have £15,000 tenants for the whole of Scotland. As lands, with us, are rarely if ever held on shorter leases than seven years, and as, unless in the highlands and islands, and in the neighbourhood of great towns, few leases fall short of L.50 rent, by far the greater number of our farmers will be entitled, under the new system, to a vote. On a rough estimate,and until the actual registration of the electors take place, any estimate must be a rough one, we should be disposed to say, that the county electors will be increased not less than tenfold; that, with three or four exceptions, when nearly all the property of a county is in the hands of one great family, the smaller counties will have from 500 to 1,000, and the larger from 1,500 to 2,000 electors. In the boroughs we possess more certain means of estimating the advantages of the bill. The electors of boroughs are in future to consist of the actual occupants, whether proprietors, life-renters, or tenants, of any house, warehouse, counting-house or shop, which, without or with any land owned or occupied under the same landlord, shall amount to the annual rent of £10. In plain English or plain Scottish, every man, who occupies a house or part of a house of any kind, or a house and a 66 yard," provided the two belong to the same 66 laird," and are together worth £10 a-year, will have a vote for the borough in which they are situated. Joint occupants have the same privileges in boroughs as in counties. The number of persons who will become possessed of the franchise, in consequence of its extension to £10 householders, will, at the lowest estimate, exceed 35,000. The number of £10 houses in the existing boroughs and their respective suburbs, striking off the three disfranchised boroughs of Selkirk, Peebles and Rothsay, and not including the newly enfranchised boroughs of Paisley, Greenock, Leith, Portobello, Musselburgh, Fisherrow, Peterhead, Kilmarnock, Falkirk and Airdrie, are estimated in the parliamentary returns at 30,376. Instead then of a constituency of 4,546, or, making allowance for the electors, who possess qualifications in more counties than one, of 4,000 individuals representing no interest under heaven but their own, we may fairly calculate, under the bill, on a constituency of not less than 65,000, representing all the varied interests of the community, from the decent thrifty shop-keeper and industrious tradesman up to the Duke of a quarter of a million of revenue. It was our intention to enter into a detailed criticism of the measure which we have been describing, but space would fail us. We shall restrict ourselves to two remarks. An objection to the qualification clauses of the Scottish Bill will naturally suggest itself, founded on their departure from the corresponding clauses of the English Bill. It was to be expected, that in this particular, the two measures were, mutatis mutandis, to be the same; the answer hitherto given to the question" why are they not so," is by no means so satisfactory to the querist, as it appears to have been to the respondent. It is a principle in the English Bill, that no description of property should remain unrepresented; there is a restriction with respect to amount, but, with that exception, in borough or in county, every man has, or may have, a vote. In Scotland this will not be the case. Take, for instance, feu-duties within borough, no amount of this very common description of property will give a qualification to its owner. Suppose the Earl of Moray to occupy a house worth ten pounds, for six weeks in the course of the year, he would have a vote for the two city members; but, supposing his Lordship not to occupy a house in Edinburgh, the thousands per annum, which he draws from his splendid property of Drumsheugh, would not suffice to give him a vote either for borough or county. How many of the houses in Edinburgh, and in every borough and town in Scotland, are held in feu? Taking the boroughs, not in their present limits, but in the limits to be assigned them by the Bill, certainly not less than one-half. This is not the only description of property which will not be represented. In smaller towns of Scotland, nothing is more common than for a man to be owner of houses to the amount of £80, £100, £120 per annum, not one of which is worth £10. Dornoch is a case in point. There is not a house worth £10 per annum in the borough. Supposing the whole of Dornoch to be the property of one man, he would not possess, nor would one of his tenants possess, a single vote, either for the borough, or for the county of Sutherland. It may be very proper to assign but one vote to one property; but here are two instances of property to a large amount, from which no vote is, in any way, derivable. Nor are these cases got up; they are bona fide existing cases in every borough in Scotland. Mr. Jeffrey's answer, when twitted with his inconsistency in giving a vote to the owner of freehold property, within borough, in England, and denying it to the owner of freehold property, within borough, in Scotland, was, that, from the latter, nothing was taken away he never had a vote. Now this, with all submission, was a pitiful answer. If the Reform Bill had no other object than to confirm existing rights, the Lord Advocate might keep it to light his cigar. The proper subject for consideration is, whether one rule should be laid down for one quarter of the kingdom, and another for another. If it be for the benefit of all classes, that the borough freeholder should, in England, retain his qualification; by parity of reason, the borough proprietor, whether of feu, or of houses, should, in Scotland, be clothed with it. The case of owners of feus, or of small houses, in the neighbourhood of boroughs, is peculiarly hard, for, were no extension of the borough to take place, they would necessarily obtain a vote for the county. Thè measure, which is one of grace to every one besides, is to them a measure of deprivation. The rule we would lay down, which is in strict conformity with the spirit of the Bill, is this-that property, whether freehold, or burgage, or leasehold, or ranking under what title soever, should, although situate within borough, give to the owner a vote for the county, of which the borough formed part, provided always, that the owner, by himself or tenants, did not, or might not, acquire, by virtué of it, a vote for the borough itself. The clause of the Bill, (the 33d.) to which these remarks apply, contains a compensatory proviso of an exceedingly edifying character. After declaring that no property, within borough, shall give a right of voting in the county, it adds, that no property without the borough shall give a right of voting in it. To make every thing secure it ought to have subjoined, nor without the kingdom. There is an objection which we have heard urged against the Bill, in which we, by no means, concur. We have heard the Bill objected to because it gives a vote to the established clergy, and, by necessary consequence, where they have a qualification, to the dissenting clergy. It is said that politics ought not to be mixed up with religion; and, it is added, that the clergy, themselves, are averse from the boon which the act holds out, on the ground, that, by accepting it, they may chance to disoblige those whom it is their interest to oblige. We shall not enter on the question, how far politics should mingle with religion; but, certainly, from those who uphold the necessity of a church establishment, it seems strange to hear doubts of the propriety of such a ming ling. For our part, we should be disposed to question the soundness of that man's faith who did not feel warmly for the welfare of his country, and who was not prepared to brave the censure of his nearest friend in its vindication. We have no doubt that the Established Clergy will constitute a most valuable and independent class of voters; and we should be sincerely sorry that any such absurd and injurious an anomaly should enter into a bill of general enfranchisement as their disquali fication. No, if we must have changes, let them be changes in the right direction, let them be confirmations of the principles of the Bill, not violations; let them be enlargements of the freedom, wherewith it is destined to make us free, not restrictions of it. More members, more voters, we will receive with joy and rejoicing; but, if that may not be, if we may have nothing but the Bill, let us, at least, have—THE WHOLE BILL. LAY OF THE LEAST MINSTREL, By the Author of "Nights of the Round Table," &c. &c. BLESSINGS be on thee, merry Siskin, For thou wast borne from far, my Birdie, But bless thy stars, my witless PETER, With seeds a store, and water sheen ; To dip thy bill, and lave thy bosom, And pranks hast thou, and wiles a many, Now on that mirrored shadow peering, Scanning aloft, with curious eye, Those sable giants+ sailing past; But presto-whisk!-that shade? alas! -Go, gentle bachelor, content thee And notes hast thou breathe not of gladness, Pensive and low, thy veiled voice swelling, Come tell me of that forest-bower, With thoughts of which thy bosom swells :Say, hung thy father's tiny tower, By Rolands-Eck or Drachenfels ? From what plumed baron of the Rhine The crows, special objects of wonder to Peter. Little wott'st thou of family story, Ah, Peter, less thou reck'st, I fear! Hadst thou heard Brunswick's battle-cry, Where nestled the Aberdevine ; Even thy bead-drop of German blood But, tush! such "Tales of field and flood" Remember'st thou thy tiny mother, In circlets safe of half a span ? O! how her little breast was beating, Fader, in wider air careering, Would wile thee to the topmost blossom; But thou, small rogue, sly downward veering, Sought'st wee mama's soft croodlin bosom. And July's moon rode brightly by, Red strawberries through the leaves were Our PETER now could feed and fly, Remember'st then, my grave Recorder, § A faint, low churm, a louder trill- And did Frau Siskin praise her pet? And what, pray, said yon small Meinheer? But, Peter,-it were best forget, All, all, are perished-thou art here! A mortal lot is thine and mine,- I moisten Peter's merry whistle, A young bird beginning to try its voice in song is called a Recorder-its little, bashful, lisp ing, first attempts are termed recording. Save the expanding faculties of childhood, nothing can be more sweetly engaging than this process-not even the unfolding of flowers. It is scarce necessary to tell that, in this stanza, Chaucer and Wordsworth, the first and the latest of England's Poets, have been pressed into the service of illustrating Peter's education. H VOL. I. PRESENT ASPECT OF AFFAIRS. IT was conjectured from the first, that the Tory lords would not be such bad tacticians as to repeat their stab at Reform in the same place, and that they would take to themselves the grace of allowing of the second reading. The Ultras, whose passions have an organ in the Quarterly Review, are displeased with this temporizing policy, as they term it, which proceeds from apprehensions in which their bloated presumption does not permit them to share: but many of the peers are perfectly sensible of the danger of their position; they are not lulled to security by the "grim repose," and have some notion of the peril of stirring up the wrath of a nation. They perceive that a second rejection of the Bill will have an effect materially different from the first, as it is scarcely possible that the Ministry can continue in office, and carry on with the hope of success. Lord Grey and his colleagues, who have stood between them and the people's resentment, should be withdrawn, and a bitter conflict of unexampled inequality would commence-the few with their riches on the one side, the many with their wrongs on the other. Then would the oligarchy find themselves in the condition of the ass in the fable loaded with treasure; for their possessions, in turbulent times, would be more troublesome to defend, than available for defence or attack, and, according to the extent of them, the obnoxious individual's sensibility to annoyance and injury would be increased. These are considerations to be looked forward to by men who incur the hazard of convulsing a country; and those who see their way, however stern their resolves may be, perceive the prudence of evading the popular hatred by every art in their power, and breaking the force of it by frittering away the provocations in a warfare of detail, allowing of various changes of position, which make it difficult for the public to fix upon any particular act in the process, as chargeable with the responsibility and odium of the ultimate defeat. Now, Lord A. votes for a part of the bill, and presently he votes against an important clause; and, again, he votes for another. Lord B. alternates with him; and each pleads that he has shewn no factious hostility, and only exercised a fair discretion, adopting the good and rejecting the questionable parts; and, yet, by this process, the measure is stabbed in a hundred places! "Thou canst not say I did it," is, however, the defence of each conspirator. The pride of the Ultra-Tories disrelishes this plan of operation which implies an awe of the popular resentment. They would break the sticks in bundle, and not condescend to pick and choose, and break this, and pass that. Despising that insignificant body, the nation, which they have so long abused with impunity that they mistake its patience for impotence, they hold in contempt those who would shuffle with it rather than trample it fiercely under foot. Their laugh at the more prudent intriguers, reminds us of the story of the young reprobate who derided the barefooted friar, saying, "Father, if there should happen to be no other world, you will be in sorry case after all your mortifications.""Son," answered the other, "if there should be another world, your mistake will be the more serious of the two." If there should happen to be such a thing as spirit in the nation, the Ultra-Tory error would have the more serious consequences to the blunderer. Either policy, however, must be disastrous. Both members of the faction would hook the whale with their trout-line; the only difference is, that the Ultras would strike hard, and refuse to give an inch, |