which the country is not, in fact, indebted to the Chancellor, but to one Mr. Vizard, whose oracles are preferred to those of Bentham, albeit his name is better known in connexion with the business of making members of Parliament, than with the science of jurisprudence, in the appointments to this precious piece of handy-work, (with its four judges to work, and four more to look over them, with such uses as the Gog and Magog in the old Hall might amply have supplied), errors of a less pardonable nature are to be traced. One may be specially instanced, the alleged motive for which was the part which the learned gentleman had taken in the suppression of some mysterious papers affecting Royalty. The question is, whether services of this sort constitute qualification for judicial office. While we are touching on this subject, we are tempted to notice a curious illustration of the rebuke of the mote in a brother's eye, in complacent unconsciousness of the beam in the censor's. Among the official assignees selected by the commissioners, were two persons, one of whom happened to be a brother, another a brother-in-law of members of the electing committee. The brother had declined to vote. Of the qualifications of the gentlemen chosen there was no doubt or question. The Chancellor, however, when he saw the names in the list, took alarm, and rejected them, signifying his displeasure that persons should have been nominated, the brother and brother-in-law of whom were on the committee. The idea of a brother having any part or influence in preferring a brother, was shocking to him, though of his own act he had appointed his brother to a mastership. For this fraternal preference there was the sanction of no committee of disinterested persons, nay there was not the approval of any one man in the country acquainted with the merits of the choice. Here Lord Brougham's favouritism, we believe, stops; Earl Grey's takes a far wider range, and we only lament that he had not five hundred more kinsmen to promote in different parts of the empire, in lieu of those enemies of the good cause, whom he has, in default of personal partialities, invested with power. Inexplicable it is that a nobleman, who, in 1810, demanded as a condition of office, that the Prince's household should be turned out, has, at the present conjuncture, so incomparably important, suffered posts of influence and command to be filled by bitter and avowed enemies to his counsels. The stake has been boldly and generously proposed, but the game has been ill played, though we have little doubt that it will ultimately be won. He who plays ill, with a nation to back him, may almost call his cards. Much mystery has been thrown about the creation of peers. One would think that Earl Grey, from tenderness to the order, wished to induce a belief that it is a difficult matter to make peers. As Teddy the tiler says, in the farce, to his brother hodman, "You baste, sure you suppose it as easy to make a peer as to make a hod of mortar." Our opinion is, that there has never been any real difficulty about the matter; though the satellites of those ministers whom we account disaffected to popular objects, have been most loud in imputing the delay to the disinclination of the King. They had, however, represented the same obstacle to the dissolution of the late Parliament, and we remember how nobly the slander was confuted by his Majesty's right majestic exercise of his prerogative. Certain we are that the persons to whom we allude, would not dare whisper against the Crown, but at the instance of their patrons for some shabby party purpose.

The Whigs have not the knack of holding their tongues. If IN or our depended on it, they could not help cackling in their clubs. They

are from long habit incontinent of counsel, occupied for so many years as they have been, in saying instead of doing. The babble of Brookes is irrepressible. Hence it has been no secret that Lord Lansdowne is warmly opposed to the creation of peers; indeed, he is said to have shewn such an energy in resisting this essential to the national peace, as he has never testified in any other instance of his political life. He is reported to have been comforted and abetted by Lord Melbourne. Here then we come to a new classification of ministers and official personages, in which we shall adopt the nomenclature of mothers with daughters on hand, who style younger sons, detrimentals or vipers.

DETRIMENTALS.

Lord Lansdown.

Lord Hill.

Lord Shaftesbury.

Mr. Stanley.

The Solicitor-General.

VIPERS.

Lord Melbourne.
Lord Palmerston.

Until some of these are weeded out, the ministry will not work freely towards any public object, and the weakness and wavering resulting from conflicting principles will be seen in its policy.

The squeamishness which some have really felt about the creation of peers is wonderful. When a man throws himself out of a window, it is not the stone on which he falls that is to be blamed for his cracked skull. The vote on the Reform Bill, and not the creation, will have to answer for the damage of the institution. Every man not deluded by the fancies of Blackstone and De Lolme, was aware, that the House of Peers must be one of two things; either an irresponsible body, which is a despotism, or an arm of the legislature obedient to the royal will. In the rejection of the Reform Bill, it gave us a specimen of what its despotism would be; and now it will be reduced to its second condition, that of an organ of the royal pleasure. As the Commons are brought to represent the people, so the Lords will henceforth represent the ministry, whose roots of power must be in the Lower House. That poor sport of his own vänity, Mr. H. Hunt, who speaks for the only praise he can get, praise of the Tories, has delivered himself of this piece of nonsense. "He must solemnly say, that it was the common sense of the thing, that if they made it a precedent to create a number of Peers to carry what they considered good and constitutional measure, it would be used against them as a precedent for carrying an unconstitutional measure.' answer to this is simply, that on the speaker's showing, when the brains are out, the man must die. If the first creation of Peers reduces the power of the Lords, as contended, no second creation can raise them to the power of mischief. Every increment to the House would sink it lower in public respect and in legislative incapacity.

the

The

The House of Lords once put, by a creation, in harmony with popular opinión, may run on smoothly with the Commons; but it will never, on any important question, be able to resist the Commons, unless the Common's have ceased to be representative of the nation. The last discord has been heard; and we hope, ere this appears in print, resolved into a new harmony, in the key of that popular letter A. In this we see no sort of evil. A delusion is dissipated. The Lords have only discovered the anti-national qualities belonging to one of their two conditions—that of irresponsibility; and they must be reduced to the other that of subordination to the existing government.

A TETE A TETE WITH MR. TAIT.

TAIT.-Well, Mr. Smith, now you have read my prospectus, what
Is there not room for me?

do you think of my prospects?

SMITH-ROOM, man! room! will make room for themselves.

There's always room for those who

TAIT. But see you not that I propose to take unoccupied ground? SMITH.-Unoccupied ground! tut, tut; unoccupied ground is barren ground-ground that no man has thought worth the trouble of culti vating. Elbow your way into the thickest of the crowd;-where many are speaking, they are heard best who speak the loudest-where many are shining, they are seen to most advantage who shine the brightest. Look ye, Mr. Tait, I see you are half-inclined to be frightened by the popular croak of bad times, rivals, and overstocked markets. Heed it not ;-our enemies are our best friends, for, by their means, we have conflicts which invigorate us, and conquests which delight us. Oh, what an appetite it gives a man for his supper, to wipe the sweat from his brow and the blood from his wounds! Never does a cock crow with such ecstasy on unoccupied ground, as he does on ground from which he has driven a conquered enemy.

TAIT.-Very true, Mr. Smith, very true; but I must contend that there is a demand at this time for a magazine of liberal principles, of independent spirit, bearing upon the times, bringing out the sympathies of mankind.

SMITH.—Mr. Tait, listen to my views of political economy in the matter of the book trade. You may talk till doomsday about demand and supply, and all that sort of thing; but I will ask you one plain question :-You have kept shop in Edinburgh some few years, and you have occasionally sold a copy or two of the Waverley novels; do you recollect that, before those novels were published, any customer came into your shop with money in his hand, saying, "Now, Mr. Tait, here is money, which you shall have, if you will produce, or cause to be produced, an interesting and lively narrative, called a novel, but written fifty times better than any novel that has been produced for the last twenty years." Or, in the whole course of your existence, and in all your intercourse with the reading and thinking public, did you ever set your eyes on any individual of whom you could positively pronounce," Such an one is in want of a good novel, a good magazine, or a good poem ?"

TAIT.-Mercy, mercy, my good friend, don't talk about poetry, it puts one in mind of hot-pressed foolscap-of hard-pressed foolshead. There is clearly no demand for poetry. Put anything into the form of verse, and you proscribe it; nobody will read it, and what is worse nobody will buy it.

SMITH. And yet at this moment John Murray is putting forth a large impression of Lord Byron's works. So far from there being no demand for poetry, there is at this moment offered a premium of ten thousand pounds for a really sublime and original poem on any topic which the writer may choose.

TAIT, (in great astonishment.)—A what? A premium for the best

poem ?

SMITH.-No, Mr. Tait, no premium for the best, for bad is the best ; but a premium for a good one, for a poem that has the life of life, the vigour of strength, the spirit of glory, and the soul of beauty.

TAIT. And who offers the premium?

SMITH.The public.---Mark me now. It is the supply that creates the demand. The want of a good book is not felt till a good book is published-then all the world is dying to read it; but if the public, looking for good books, finds nothing but froth, froth, trash, trash, flummery, and mummery-things that have been said a thousand times before said a thousand times worse than ever-thoughts from those who think not, and who cannot think what thinking is-tales from those who have not heads-observations from those who observe not, it grows disgusted, and rejects reading altogether. Depend upon it, Mr. Tait, the public is not an ass, it knows good from bad; some few readers, who cannot think, will read for reading's sake; but they who can think will prefer their own wordless thoughts to others' thoughtless words. Have you ever seen a thriving citizen sitting down to a well-dressed dinner of three courses; and have you observed, if, sitting at the same table, you were not too busy to observe, with what deep glee and intense delight of application, he has given up his soul to the meats before him? Then you have seen the public with a good book. On the other hand, have you ever seen a lean, gaunt, rib-displaying, hungry dog, prowling about in the vicinity of a slut's kitchen, where divers dirty bones lie begging for a dog's tooth in the sun; and have you seen the poor beast first take up one and then another, and then another, and then walk away in hungry despair and unfed sorrow? Then you have seen a lover of printed paper, in a reading-room, on the first or second day of the month, mumbling and grumbling over the periodical publications; taking up one and yawning at the first page, taking up another and yawning at the second page; sneering at one that it smells of perfumery, at another that it smells of blood, or at another that it smells of brimstone, or at another that it is scentless, bloodless, fleshless, lifeless, soulless and altogether stark naught, driven at last, in despair of managing to get through an article, to read the advertisements, or to meditate on the meteorological table.

TAIT. All this I have seen, Mr. Smith, and so has every body who has eyes. I know that nothing but that which is excellent has a chance of excelling; but I think that I have a double chance of success-from the talent of my contributors, and the comparative originality of my plan.

SMITH. Of the talent of your contributors I have not the slightest doubt; but as to the originality of your plan, be kind enough to enlighten me.

TAIT.—I can do it in three words, Liberality, Spirit, Utility.
SMITH.-Have we never had them before?

TAIT. Never united.—We have had periodicals of liberal politics, but then they have been tame, flat, and flabby: they have carried with their liberality a mighty, weight of dry goods, prosing disquisitions, spoony tales, pointless epigrams, and endless twaddle, which has appertained as much to the politics and interests of the moon as to those of our own miscellaneous and wondrous planet. Their liberality has been the liberality of the editor in inserting articles which must have been heavy enough to break down an iron press and to set the printer's devil yawning. I have sometimes been tempted to imagine that magazine editors have occasionally inserted papers by way of making the writers ashamed of themselves, and shewing the world what vapid nonsense some men can write, when they set about it in good earnest.

SMITH. I believe you, I believe you, Mr. Tait; but you are

speaking very boldly, man. Suppose now that I were to let the world know what you have been saying to me; would they not expect, think you, that Tait's Edinburgh Magazine will contain no trash, no balderdash, no flat wishwash, muckery and moonshine?

TAIT. To be sure they would, and so I would have them; and they shall not be disappointed in their expectation. Have I not said in my prospectus

SMITH.-Pish!-beg pardon for interrupting,—but in a confidential conversation like this, what signifies alluding to a prospectus? I want to have from your own lips your own notions of your own words. Now, for instance, you profess liberality. Who in the name of wonder would ever put forth a prospectus professing illiberality?

TAIT. No one professes illiberality: but they put it forth under the cloak of very fine words, with which the foxes of old used to sing the geese to sleep; they talk of venerable institutions, and glorious constitutions, of the pride and envy of surrounding nations, of the test of ages, and the time-honoured pinnacles,-which have just as much meaning as the buzz of a cockchafer ;—

-or to

SMITH. And are as great a nuisance. I do confess to you, Mr. Tait, that of all mental operations, if mental it may be called,— speak more properly, of all uses of the ears, I know none more utterly disagreeable or annoying than listening to a long prosification in the shape of argument in favor of exploded whimwhams, all about ninetenths of nothing at all.

TAIT. But if you hate the wearisome buzz of pretended argument in favour of Toryism, toadeatory, and the like, what think you of the jesuitical trash and trickery of putting together cock-and-bull stories all about the abominations of the French Revolution, as if every movement in favour of liberty and equal laws were necessarily and inseparably connected with bloodshed and brutality?

SMITH.-Capital, Mr. Tait, capital! Oh, I do admire it with all

my heart.

TAIT.-Eh-what! admire it! Do you believe such tales? Do you not regard such tales and representations as either absolute falsehoods or gross exaggerations?

SMITH.-Neither one nor t'other, Mr. Tait. They are all true enough; but peradventure there may be a little poetical embellishment about them,-no more. When I saw the attempt that was made to dis.. credit the cause of Parliamentary Reform by means of dreadful stories of the French Revolution, I smiled-smiled not from any delight or satisfaction that I had in reading the tales, but I smiled at the simplicity of the logic of those good people who used weapons that destroyed their own arguments. Why, man, if these tales be true, and I have no doubt that they are, what a story do they tell of the deep and grinding oppression which drove passive humanity, when it could be no longer passive, to break out into such a dreadful fury of loud resistance. When I read or hear of violence bursting forth, I am naturally led to ask, “Is there not a cause ?" My very heart bleeds to think what insolence man must have endured from his fellow man, in the way of political and social oppression, before he could have been driven to that outrageous reaction which appeared in the first French Revolution.

TAIT (attempting to conceal an incipient smile).-But you do not read, Mr. Smith, of any such violence used towards the people of France,