jects seem either increased far beyond, or diminished far below, their real magnitude-so that men's minds have no true and steadfast knowledge, and keep perpetually fluctuating on a sea of troubles. So moved, the National Will loses all its power and all its grandeur; and its disturb ed and uncertain movements, obeying no moral and intellectual laws, cannot be for good.

But to seek to control it by external force-by menace or inflictionis a vain thought at all times and in all places-especially so now and here for knowledge henceforth must be the stability of the State. Some protecting enactments there must be against popular fury; but the war of words is like the war of waves and winds, that will soon destroy ill-constructed and injudicious ly placed embankments, but waste their wildness along even low and level shores, with gentle places, bosoms, nooks, and bays" provided by gracious nature, while science and art assist her working for peace, and build up defences that the tides themselves obey, mounds that time strengthens as their "feet beat back the ocean's foamy surge."

True liberty is by nature calm. She is not surely at all times like "loud-throated war." "Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!" that may be indeed a good war-cry-but society cannot be in a sane state, when all men are battling-even, as they may think, for the right-for that is not the temper of Intellect which, while it can "ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm," knows that its best region is a region of peace. Worst of all when Intellect comes to enjoy the tumult and turmoil which it has itself created, and lives rather to be a destroyer and a puller down than a guardian and a builder-up; when it scorns its natural and happy office of restoration and renovation, and keeps open the wounds it has torn open, rather than deal gently with them, and "with a hand of healing."

The conduct of any Government that punishes people for the publication of political opinions can be justified or condemned but on a right understanding of the danger of the times-and of the share which that Government may have had in creating it. The Tory Governments,

that prosecuted what they thought sedition or treason at the commencement of the revolutionary war, believed that the existence of the monarchy was threatened; whether right or wrong in the measures they pursued to quell the danger, they were sincere; nor are they accused by any but a few stray idiots, of having purposely caused the danger, and instigated to crime the wretches whom they sought afterwards to punish. They were not revolutionists turning round on revolu tionists-and dooming their followers to imprisonment, expatriation, or death. The Whigs in those days were all for the liberty of the Press; and every man who suffered by the law for his political sins, whether they were in words or in acts, was a "great patriot-hero, ill-requited chief," for the truth a martyr. With many of the sentiments of the few noble and high-minded men of that party, we never were, nor are we now, unable or unwilling to sympathize; we abhor the suppression, by mere power of the law, even of the pernicious exercise of evil thought; and would far ra ther wither wickedness by the lightnings launched against it by Intellect, the Prime Minister of Patriotism, than confine it by the lock and key of the Jailer, or cut it down by the axe, or strangle it by the cord of the Executioner.

But though we have always loved the Liberty of the Press-of the Periodical and Political Press-we have never felt that it was so essential to our existence as the air we breathed-or that without it we should have died. We do not indeed doubt that we should soon expire in an exhausted air-receiver; but millions of human beings, as good or better than ourselves, have lived to old age, and been happy beneath the skies, and not under a Whig government. Nay, the Whigs themselves have not died when deprived of the air they breathed, and which they averred was necessary to their very existence; but have kept bawling with lusty lungs, as if they would live to all eternity, against Tory Ministries, that, according to them, had not only corrupted, but annihilated, the said vital air; and now that they have become "angels and ministers of grace" themselves, they find that

they and all their connexions can live well upon the loaves and fishes, though unaccompanied in the devoural by unmeasured draughts of that air which once they must have breathed-or, to the great loss and grief of the nation, forthwith died.

The late Revolution was brought about in pretty much the same way, and by pretty much the same means, as any other recorded in the Old Almanack. The Press was not idle, and assuredly was free; men, women, and children, were employed in working it voluntarily night and day at long hours-in the many factories; and when any unlucky operative got idle, down caine on his head, in the heavy hand perhaps of the Editor of the Times, the patriotic billy-roller. The Whigs kept the whole machinery in oil. And they ensured the mill-owners against all loss by fire.

"O happy state when souls together draw; When love is liberty, and nature law! So thought the Reformers; and the country in that union, and at that crisis, disclosed a power of vituperation which no abuse could resist. Stones, torches, brick-bats, and rotten eggs, described in the air figures far more imposing than any mere figures of speech; and rhetorical flourishes seemed feeble when brought into hourly comparison with "the measured tread of marching men," making the ground groan against their oppressors. In such crowds and throngs there was something as morally as intellectually grand in the Liberty of the Pressor rather pressure; patriotism was kindled by contact; the people took their affairs into their own hands and beneath their own feet; and the world had only to look on and admire the glorious spectacle of National Regeneration. A Bishop's palace or a Duke's castle, as they "went to the earth," seemed in the eyes of the liberators to give more smoke than fire, and the burning of a town to be a trifle. The storm was up-and all voices were privileged to growl or howl ad libitum-all hands to threaten; the one House of Parliament was bought and sold, and the other swamped and sunk; and the Bill of our rights and liberties carried, not

VOL. XXXV. NO. CCXIX.

in that hole-and-corner meeting held in St Stephen's Chapel, but in the open air-and by acclamation that deafened the ears even of an appróving lower heaven.

Not a few good Whigs there were -and even Radicals-nay, even a considerable number of so-and-so Tories-who wished for Reform in the system of representation-but not such reforms as the multitude then gave us. Their desire for some change-more or less-was judicious, and we shall not say not founded on reason. But what could they do in the midst of all that liberty of the Press? The more violent, and utterly unprincipled Whig leaders preached war against all such reformers-even 66 war to the knife;" and every man who counselled caution and moderation, was denounced as a traitor or a slave. We say, utterly unprincipled Whig leadersfor the measure they were finally forced to carry-in fear that the power they coveted for sake of the pelf it brings might after all elude their greedy grasp, and fall into the hands they hated-was not their measure, nor such as even their understandings approved, but at enmity even with their own convictions of what in this country ought to be the principle of a liberal Government. We say so in the belief that all they had been saying all their lives-and especially within the year -was not one lie; but that even they Henry Brougham in his strength-and Lord John Russell in his weakness-were not timeserving and time-watching hypocrites all along, and longing for the hour when they might apostatize in a magnificent or a mean ambition.

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We are far from despairing of our country even had his Majesty's Solicitor-General for England not encouraged us to hope, by the assurance he has lately given us, in an address delivered to a jury, bright with the fire of freedom, that the country never was in so flourishing a condition as it is now, since it reappeared all glittering with green from the refreshment of the flood. But ignorant indeed must we be of the character of our countrymen, if the Radicals are to be put down by prosecutions against that Press, which,

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when unshackled, lifted up Ministers to their seats of power, and placed the heads of far better men below their hoofs. We say, "when unshackled"-meaning unshackled by any rightful laws-for all such were abrogated by the tyrants who now turn to tread upon their slaves and make them the victims of legal oppression. No prophets are we; but we predicted a hundred times that the Radicals-who were the Operatives in the revolution - would remain true to their principles, and that the Whigs would desert theirs for we always thought the Radicals tolerably honest and the Whigs intolerably dishonest that the Radicals were ignorantly (we speak of them as a body) striving for their imagined rights and the rights of the poorthat the Whigs were knowingly (we speak of them as a body) striving for the possession of wrongful power, and the privileges of the rich, which they saw they could hold through the new charter by a different tenure, without caring afterwards a farthing, a feather, or a straw, for the dupes and instruments of their dark designs, which, though palpably of the most selfish kind-party and personal -they had the audacity to declare, and the cunning to make the monstrous declaration be credited, were all animated solely by a devoted love of the liberties of the people, high patriotism, pure philanthropy, liberal philosophy, and true religion.

We took such share in the debate as we supposed we were entitled to take- such as was suitable to our situation of private citizens wishing to say their say, through the Press, on the demerits of the great measure. We never chanced to see any refutation of our aspersions on the Bill; but we see every day new fulfilments of our predictions of its results. And here we now have the Whig Government, composed of men, or by men supported, who encouraged, both by precept and example, the people to hold all law at defiance, and to wrest their rights, in the face of all law, from the clutch of a tyrannical oligarchy-now prosecuting for sedition their former friends and allies for the self-same sedition-but under every palliating cir

cumstance that can be imagined-of which reforming Lords and Commoners of high repute had vaunted themselves nobly guilty, and by which they had clenched their claims to the character of your only patriots.

The Solicitor-General addressed the Jury. "This was an information filed against the defendants, proprietor and printer of The True Sun, for the publication in that paper of two maliclous and seditious libels, in which the people of this country were called upon to resist the payment of the assessed taxes; and also, for a libel tending to bring the House of Commons into contempt with the people of this realm!" If the SolicitorGeneral's features did not suffer and shew a severe twinge, as he uttered these words, he must be a consummate master of face. And a con. summate master of face he undoubtedly is, to have been able to utter at all the words that followed that indirect announcement of his reve rential regard for the political character of Earl Fitzwilliam. "This prosecution, gentlemen, involves no question with respect to the free discussion of public affairs-it involves no question in which the Liberty of the Press of this country may be supposed to be concerned." Perhaps not; but it involves many questions in which the politicalwhy not say the personal-character of all his Majesty's Ministers

may be supposed to be concerned;" and its effect does not at first sight appear to resemble whitewashing-so much as the stain of dirty ochre, laid on thick by the dull, not dashing hand of a well-paid dauber. What man, who was not an enemy of his country, and deserving of severe punishment, would either openly advise, or covertly_suggest opposition to the Laws? But hear the Solicitor-General-for he alone can do justice to such a themeand as we listen to his eloquence, Mr William Brougham sinks from a tenth into a twentieth-rate orator. "Now, gentlemen of the jury, if those laws are unjust and oppressive, you and the publishers of this seditious libel well know that there is a legitimate mode of getting rid of them, by petitions to the legislature to that effect; and if the legislature dis

regarded the petitions of the people, both they and you are aware that his Majesty may be petitioned to dissolve the Parliament; and then the people, having the choice of their representatives, would no doubt elect those who would accede to their wishes. More than this, if his Majesty thought proper not to accord the petition of the people by a dissolution of Parliament, the time, you are aware, is not far distant when the present Parliament must dissolve of itself, and then the people could select representatives who would not disregard their just demands, and which, I maintain, it is the bounden duty of the representatives of the people not to do. In instituting this prosecution, gentlemen of the jury, we feel that we have done nothing but what our duty imperatively demanded from us. We complain that this publication undisguisedly exhorts the people to open violation of the lawthat there is not an attempt made in it to discuss the justice or injustice of the taxes which the people are called on to resist, but that it seditiously incites them to an illegal resistance by physical force." But let us take a look at this seditious libel, against which is charged the shocking crime "of having a tendency to bring the House of Commons into contempt with the people of this country." What! A Reformed House of Commons brought into contempt with a nation of free men who, no longer ago than when their old shoes were new, were, in the Solicitor-General's opinion, and in the opinion of all his Majesty's Ministers, little better than a nation of slaves! A breath of air in a still summer evening has "a tendency" to blow down York Minster. So has the True Sun to melt the House of Commons into muddy water. But if it be indeed such a House of Commons as its members and admirers declare it to be, it will be proof against the hottest beams shot by the True Sun in the fiercest of his dog-days. We defy both the True Sun and the Sun, even with their united lustre, to bring either the House of Commons, or any other house, that is not contemptible, into contempt. Nobody can despise the House of

Commons; let those libellous luminaries 'flare up' as they will with angry light against the Palladium of our liberties. It is no wooden-horse -nor yet is it full of armed men-to be set on fire and consumed to ashes by any Sun, even with the aid of a burning mirror to concentrate into one focus all the destructive rays of heaven. But here is the libel.

"It (meaning the House of Commons) stands in all its unseemliness before us, right in our path, shocking us with its disgusting and loathsome brutality of aspect, and resolved not to crawl an inch out of our

way.

We must make it, it must move forward-the hideous thing cannot be suffered to squat where it does. If we cannot stir it, we must leap over it at all hazards. We cannot stand here looking at it day after day-the sight is too sickening-the creature is too venomous, its attitude is too revoltingly ugly; neither can we descend the precipice which we have scaled, and sink again into the slough of despondency. No, we must go on at any rate, or be starved. Well then, we have tried all ordinary means-we have soothed and implored-we must now employ threats, as we have before with success; and if threats operate no better than smiles and fair words, we must put these same threats into force. But how!"-how? We will see how.

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"The majority of last night has decided that the rich shall not be taxed according to their means, and that the poor shall continue to be taxed beyond theirs. It has decided that the amount which every man is called upon to pay to Government shall not be regulated according to his property. What then remains to be done? The House has rescinded its own resolution of Friday, the people must rescind the resolution of the House of Thursday-they must refuse to pay what they can only pay at the expense of their common ruin. The refusal to pay taxes a few months ago re-seated the wretched Whigs in power-a second refusal will unseat them. The Whig Government has taken the advantage of such a step; let it take the adverse consequences of it. Let the people for once avail themselves of the example of a Lord. Let them look for

precedents in an emergency even among the Peerage. Let them do as Lord Milton did, and resist the taxgatherer; and above all things let the men of the metropolis be the first to follow the aristocratic example, by refusing to submit longer to the infamous inequality and injustice of the House and Window Taxes. The Ministers themselves have denounced these taxes-let the people quietly proceed to extinguish them, and they will. Ecce signum. Several private meetings have been held in different parts of the metropolis, by the tradesmen and householders, on the subject of the house and win dow duties, which were attended by several brokers; each of the parishioners spoke with a firm determination to resist those oppressive taxes for the future. The tax-gatherer, they said, might seize for them, but the brokers assured the inhabitants that they would neither seize any goods for such taxes, nor would they purchase goods so seized. Yesterday afternoon, Mr Philips, a broker, in the Broadway, Westminster, exhibited the following placard at the door of his shop:-Take notice, that the proprietor of this shop will not distrain for the house and window duties, nor will he purchase any goods that are seized for the said taxes; neither will any of those oppressive taxes be paid for this house În future.' A similar notice was also exhibited at a broker's shop in York Street, Westminster. 'Dull not device by coldness and delay. Follow up the resolution, and let the Whigs learn that wisdom which crieth out to them in the streets. Let the metropolis stop the supplies.' Let it pass, by the act of its moral will and energy, a coercive measure' that shall compel the Parliament to represent, and not resist, the mind and spirit of the people."

We cannot say that we think this by any means a flattering picture of Parliament, yet such is the diversity of opinions and tastes among men, that while many may think it a strong coarse likeness, as many may think it feeble and not characteristic, and many more or fewer no likeness at all. For our own parts we are not entitled to judge of the likeness, for we never saw the present Parliament; and know nothing about it

but what we have noticed respecting its proceedings in the newspapersand O'Connell says the Reporters are not true men. The SolicitorGeneral is surely as good a portrait and historical painter as the gentleman called the True Sun; and the public may be safely defied to say which is the pictured semblance of the real Simon Pure. Simon has sat to the Solicitor in every possible posture and attitude, and with all varieties of countenance; to the True Sun he has but occasionally exhibited himself for an hour at a time, and, as it has happened, always in a strange humour, and an odd mood, sufficient to perplex the luminary, who has not as yet chanced to look in upon the original in a happy moment, so as to behold him-we had almost said in puris naturalibus— but we mean in his more delightful and endearing characteristics. Two years ago or so, the Solicitor-he may recollect-was just as unfortunate-and painted such a picture of the present Parliament's predecessor, that he had absolutely at one and the same time a strong look of Caligula, Heliogabalus, Barbarossa, Bluebeard, Jack-the-Giant Killer, Punch, Mr Merriman, a vulture, a vampire, and a corpse. True he "was not sitting at the time ;" and unreasonable would it have been to expect he should; for he had just died-been dissolved-and was laid out for burial. Still, though defunct, he was the same Parliament he had been when alive; and to our simple and unsophisticated mind, it is to the full as atrocious to libel the dead as the living, or even the dead-alive. We cannot look on the circumstance the Solicitor-General mentions as the great aggravation of the True Sun's offence in the light of any aggravation at all-though it subjects the True Sun to temporary obscuration not we hope to a total eclipse. "The Parliament was sitting at the time; and in my opinion A PARLIA

MENT COMPOSED OF MORE HONOURABLE MEN, AND ONE MORE CONSONANT TO THE WISHES OF THE PEOPLE, AND MORE TRULY THEIR REPRESENTATIVES, was not sitting at any former time! And yet he tells the Jury that people who are dissatisfied with it ought to petition his Majesty to dissolve it! And that he whose wri