the nation, identified with its interests, and of approved skill and honesty. Our future rulers must act under a sense of thorough responsiblity.

From this time forth,

The few must know their service to the many.

National happiness must now become the aim of Government, not a bonus held out to the people to allure them to serve its private purposes.

Such is the past-the future is a page which admits of being but dimly scanned. One thing is certain, that our fate is now, under Providence, in our own hands; and that it will require the utmost exertion of the nation's courage, intelligence, and wariness, to rescue it from the dilemma into which it has been brought by the incapacity of its former rulers. A radical reform in our institutions and economy must be immediately begun, and systematically and unflinchingly persevered in. Much delusion is yet prevalent which must be combated;—the body politic is feverish and irritated, and not unlikely, in a moment of perversity, to act like a sick man, who nauseated by the bitterness of the remedy offered him, refuses to be cured.

The duty most imperatively urgent upon our new legislators will be to promote the diffusion of knowledge. Elementary schools, adequate to the population, must be founded in every district. The reform, which has searched minor charities, and even laid hand, however lightly, upon our Scottish Universities, must extend its influence to the great monopolies of Oxford and Cambridge. They were intended by their founders to promote knowledge, and this generous intention they must be made to fulfil. It must no longer be said that the great seminaries of English education are log-lines of the human understanding; that while the rest of the nation has been successfully rivalling other countries in science, art, and literature, these over-wealthy institutions have been striving to repress the generous aspirations of the mind after knowledge. In farther aid of the diffusion of knowledge, every tax tending to repress literary exertion, and the free interchange of the literature of this country with that of foreign nations-all duties upon newspapers and pamphlets, and foreign books, must be abolished. Let free inquiry loose, and truth ultimately will prevail. Permit unlimited access to the fountain of knowledge, for here indeed " increase of appetite doth grow with what it feeds upon."

Next in importance is the task of systematising and simplifying the proceedings of the Legislature and of the Executive Government. Much valuable time may be saved, and much useless expense avoided, by referring to local legislative bodies, a great proportion of the private bills which occupy so much of the attention of Parliament. The House of Commons must be divided into committees of legislation, finance, &c. to which must be remitted all projects of new laws; all information respecting their several departments; all petitions from the people therewith connected. In these committees evidence must be sifted and arranged methodically, and the measures to be proposed for the adoption of the whole legislative body brought into a definite and accurate form. The necessity of some arrangement like this is demonstrated by the numberless instances of paltry and partial enactments smuggled through the House of Commons; by the inaccurate, and frequently unintelligible, language of our Acts of Parliament; and by the bush-fighting unpractical character of the Debates. In like manner the public accounts must be made up in a compact and intelligible

manner. The number of Boards, and of official persons, must be restricted within the narrowest possible limits. Above all, care must be taken to give every possible publicity to the proceedings of the Legislature of the Executive, and of the general state of the country. The preliminary labours of the different Finance Committees; of the Commissioners appointed by the Crown to report on the civil list, the officers of state, and the Exchequer; and the invaluable report of Dr. Bowring, have materially facilitated the attainment of these arrangements.

The next great object of attention is the diminution of the national burthens. This can never be accomplished without the adoption of an honest and direct system of taxation. Indirect taxation, as tending to press hard upon industry, and to superinduce a system of juggling delusion—of picking people's pockets unawares, must come to an end. Borrowing for national purposes, if indeed it be permitted at all, must be effected upon some system analagous to that suggested in a subsequent article of the present number. Some compromise, such as that suggested by the late Mr. Ricardo, must be agreed to by the landholders, fundholders, and other capitalists, in order to free the nation from the pressure of that incubus, our present debt. The tithe system, now put an end to in Ireland, must be abolished in England likewise. It is surely time for men to see the folly and inutility of submitting their necks to what is called an Established Church. Can any thing be more incongruous than a state of affairs, in which a man, according as he chances to stand on the north or the south side of a river, is a Dissenter, or a member of the Establishment. Christianity is now as widely diffused through these realms as human means can effect it—and only for missionary purposes was an organised system of affiliated churches contemplated by the founders of our religion. Every reasonable being now admits that the different sects to which we belong, however they may differ on the question of discipline, preach in the main the same doctrine. It is matter of notoriety that the dissenters have done more to diffuse and keep alive vital religion among the people, than the Establishment. Why then continue to rob the nation of such an immense annual sum-and levied, too, in so impolitic a manner—for the support of a useless excrescence, an infringement upon Christian liberty. Another important alleviation of the national burdens will be effected by the abolition of all corporations which have the power of imposing local taxes; and conferring upon the inhabitants of the district the right of electing those who regulate their police and its expenditure. Lastly, such a system of poor's rates must be adopted as will insure the application of this tax to its legitimate purpose. The capitalist must no longer be allowed to pay his labourer out of a fund, which belongs, by a sacred right, to the impotent and necessitous.

Scarcely of secondary importance to the simplification and reduction of state burdens, is the removal of all restraints upon individual industry. Those impolitic laws, which restrict one branch of trade, and afford unnatural encouragement to another, for the attainment of some fancied good, must be abolished. The enterprise of man left to make his fortune by his own exertions will supply us with hardy and daring defenders, without alluring individuals to pursue a gainless traffic. The distress at present attributed to our recurrence to the principles of free trade, is the result of their not having been adopted to their full extent. The transition from an artificial to a natural system of trade, is a painful operation, but a cure will be the consequeuce of momentary suffering. Com

merce in grain and in everything else must be freed from its shackles. It is not true that our adoption of the principles of free trade will not meet with reciprocal concessions. Nations stand at present in the same relation to each other, as men do in the savage state-they are afraid to trust the stranger. Let us set the example, and we will be followed. In France, in America, just views are rapidly gaining ground. The rest will follow. A commerce based upon industry native to the soil-suggested by its productions, not the child of statute-will be free from the periodical sicknesses to which our present hot-house plants are subject. In like manner, our connection with our colonies must be placed on a proper footing. Colonies are swarms from the parent hive when over-full. The ties of kindred and affection give them a claim to protection in their nonage. Their friendship may be relied on in the hour of danger in proportion as they are kindly treated. Their commerce is valuable in proportion as it is freed from all restraints. While yet too young to form a state, they are members of our body politic, subject to the same burdens, entitled to the same immunities. When they are able to govern themselves let us part company in friendship. Any attempt, by restrictions on their trade, and the imposition of duties, to wrest from them their honest gains, must alienate their affections; and, although it may enrich a few, must entail a burden on the community.

The last reform to which we propose at present to allude, is Law Reform. The object of all law is the security of person and property. The civil law determines, in questions of disputed ownership, to whom the property in question belongs. The criminal law forbids, under the sanction of punishments, all attacks upon a neighbour's person or property. The remnants of institutions, which have long ceased to exist still continue to render the civil law of this country voluminous, perplexed, and unintelligible :-the artificial nature of our system of government has elevated many an indifferent action into the character of a crime while the utter ignorance of the science of legislation has rendered both branches full of the most oppressive and contradictory rules; and has lent to the latter in particular a character of blood-thirstiness revolting to every feeling of humanity. The same evil fate has attended the organization of our courts of justice, which are deeply tainted with inaptitude for business, and aptitude for vexatious delay. In some the judicial is confounded with the executive, in others with the legislative character in all the expence is enormous. As sources of hatred and all uncharitableness-as perverters of the natural sense of justice—as impediments to commerce-and as burdens on the community, they are unsurpassed.

The reform which we have attempted, however inadequately, to sketch, must follow up the reform in our representative system, otherwise we have been like wayward children, loudly claiming a privilege which we never intended to exercise. Its object is to simplify our institutions---to render them less burdensome and at the same time more effective---to put the machine of the state in good working order. It is only in such a searching reform-a reform proceeding upon systematic and comprehensive views, that there is hope for the nation. The curse of the bit-by-bit reformer is, that, by introducing a good regulation into a bad system, he but increases the mischief. All the harm done is attributed to the innovation, not to the old, rooted abuses, whose contaminating touch turns even good into evil. He " sews new cloth upon old garments, making the rent worse." Good regulations

On the Silence of the Poet Laureate.

25

are only available under a good system. It is the impossibility of otherwise escaping from the pertinacious adherence to what was vile of one party, and the piddling, mischievous tampering with the constitution of those who saw the cure but did not dare to apply it, that has forced the nation to take the task into its own hands. If, under the Reform Bill, we obtain a set of representatives, enlightened and bold enough to apply a radical reform to all our defective institutions, then our third revolution has accomplished its ends, and the nation starts, with renewed energies, on a long career of prosperity. If the Bill be defeated, or found not to answer, we must have a further extension of the suffrage. As lovers of peace and quiet, we should prefer the first alternative, but can never hesitate between the second and a perpetuation of old abuses. Come what may, our political creed-the great object which we propose as the termination of our labours, is fully and frankly avowed, and neither danger nor obloquy shall make us retract it. Our faith is firm― our resolution unchanging our faces Zionward-and our motto that of England's noblest patriot,

VESTIGIA NULLA RETRORSUM.

ON THE LATE REMARKABLE SILENCE OF THE POET LAUREATE.

WHEN Tudor tyrants England's crown disgraced,
They kept two menial knaves-to prove their taste-
With different gifts, to please the moody King—
One hired to dance-and one suborned to sing.
They played their fulsome antics round and round,
The one with bells-and one with laurel crowned.
Invidious years the precious pair divide-
Our Southey still survives-our Summers died.+
What ails the Doctor-is his music past?...
Our hired buffoon declines to grin at last.

Vitellius lives. The venal laureate sings
The first of Regents-and the best of Kings.
Vitellius dies. They drag, with vain parade,
The ponderous coffin, to sepulchral shade,
While joyous England rings, from shore to shore-
"Thanks to great God! Vitellius is no more."

Now, surely, is the time. With right good will,
The hireling hand will ply the grey goose quill—–
Sonorous odes the eager voice will bray-
Wine fires the genius-gold suggests the lay.
Say, has thy sack turned sour-thy golden fee

Grown dross ? Will interest wring no line from thee?

No tortured dactyli his loss bewail

No Sapphic monster, with Adonian tail—

No dithyrambic threnody, to shew

How many virtues lie enshrined below-

How-o'er his hearse-the orphan people shed
Cascades of tears-and mourn their Father dead!
No. Silence suits him well. "Tis thine to run-
Ere yet too late to hail the rising sun!

While clouds of heathen fight the world o'erhung-
From haunted grot the Pythian damsel sung-
Base juggling hands the wreath of Phoebus wove-
And oaks groaned out the edicts of their Jove.

The light breaks forth. Imposture's reign is o'er-
Mute is Dodona-Delphos lies no more.

Will Summers, the last stipendiary Court jester.

To Hell's black womb the silent Gods retire-
While shivering Vesta fans her waning fire.

So Thou whilst England writhed beneath her chain-
And Freedom urged her trampled rights in vain—

Wast hired, at stated periods, to rehearse

The deeds of despots in blaspheming verse.
To worth and wit poor frantic Lear to raise,
And daub Vitellius o'er with beastly praise.
In Slavery's cause the murdered myriads bleed-
Thy jingling metre lauds the mighty deed-
Misrule's black acts still foremost to proclaim-
Proud of thy yoke, vain-glorious of thy shame.
Gone is night's empire-happier days have come-
Great William reigns-the Delphic voice is dumb.
Millions of knees in votive ardour bend
To pray for Him-our Patriot-and our Friend.
From anile Statesmen-from the rust of years—
From mitred Sybarites, and felon Peers-
Ordained by Heaven to rescue and redeem-
And Southey's servile dotage shuns the theme.

THE MARTINET.

"He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too old, as it were-too peregrinate, as I may call it."Love's Labour Lost.

THE "Martinet” is the name of a genus, not of a species; the title of a race variously feathered, but having specific qualities in common. There is your military martinet, your clerical martinet, your legal martinet, and the martinet of common life, (“Gallicrista fastidiosa communis,” Linnæus would class him,) who is to the others what the house-sparrow is to the rest of his tribe. It is with him alone we have to do. The "martinet” is a person who is all his life violently busied in endeavouring to be a perfect gentleman, and who almost succeeds. He misses the point by overstepping it. He is like one of those greyhounds which outrun the hare fleetly enough, but cannot "take" her when they have done so. They have a little too much speed, and a little too little tact. The martinet is always bent upon thinking, saying, doing, and having, every-thing after a nicer fashion than other people, until his nicety runs into downright mannerism; all his ideas become "clipped taffeta,' and all his eggs are known to have "two yolks." He rarely comes of age or is thoroughly ripe till near forty, before which he may be a little of the precise fop, and after which he changes to the somewhat foppish precisian, which is the best definition of him. He would be an excellent member of society were he not a little too nice for its every-day work, which, to speak a truth in metaphor, will not always admit of white gloves. He is remarkably consistent in all his proceedings, however, and the outward man is a perfect and complete type of the inward, and vice versa. His soul is never out of pumps and silk stockings, and picks its way amidst the little mental puddles and cross-roads of this world with a chariness of step, which is at once edifying and amusing. Of inward show he is not less" elaborate" than of outward; and, though a descendant of Eve, takes equal care of the clothing of both mind and body.

Were his tailor to be abandoned enough to attempt to palm upon