would require six weeks for such a tour as we have indicated; and if he divides it into two, Tremadoc or Ffestiniog will be as far as he can reach in one tour of three weeks. In North Wales, one day out of four must be allowed for unfavourable weather, except in the very middle of summer.

The scenery of South Wales is inferior to that of the North, and should be visited first, if the pedestrian can devote several tours to this portion of the country. The following have been found good centres: Chepstow, Crickhowel, Brecon, Merthyr, Swansea, Llandilo, Carmarthen, Tenby, Pembroke.

The best centres for the Lakes of Cumberland are Bowness, Ambleside, Coniston Head, Keswick, Buttermere or Crummock, Ulleswater Head, Wastwater, and Ennerdale. In the two latter places there are no inns.

A pretty little tour may be made in Derbyshire, taking as centres Derby, Cromford or Matlock, Bath, Bakewell, Buxton, Castleton, and, proceeding south by Hartington, to Dove Dale.

If we were writing a guide-book for short tours we might select many beautiful clusters of centres, such as the country about Southampton and the Isle of Wight; the region of Box Hill, Dorking, Leith Hill, Guildford, and Godalming; the Thames region from near Reading to Streatley, and also about Maidenhead, Cookham, Marlow and Henley; the circle of the Chiltern hills, including Tring, Wendover, Prince's Risborough, and Hampden; the country about Arundel, thence along the top of the South Downs to Shoreham, Lewes, and by Beachy Head to East Bourne; North Devon, and South Devon; Cornwall, &c. &c.; not to mention Scotland and Ireland.

Those whose circumstances require economy will find that the expenditure of a walking tour is not above half that of the ordinary mode of travelling, and may, when necessary, be reduced to a third.

When families leave their abodes in towns for a temporary residence in the country or at watering-places, they usually restrict themselves to one or two short, dull, monotonous walks. These soon grow tiresome, and it then becomes a matter of duty, often of painful duty, to persevere in taking exercise in the open air. Now we have personally known several families of females, some of them very delicate, and some very young, who have been in the frequent habit of walking five or six miles, or even more, in the summer, with very great pleasure and advantage; taking a slight rest on the approach of fatigue.

Much pleasure, intellectual improvement, and even formal instruction may be secured to boys by occasional excursions of half or a whole day; and very young urchins will go many miles with pleasure, and without much fatigue, if they are allowed proper food and rests, and are taken to examine interesting objects. Even little children will derive much gratification from watching

the progress of some distant road-making, canal-cutting, and house or bridge building, respecting which also much amusing and instructive conversation may be afterwards held.

RUTH.

NOT to the fool, or he who looks
On women but as gaudy books,

Where gilding takes the place of reason,
Or fashion makes their life—a season :
Not to the worshipper of rules

Made by the world to govern fools,
Or him who makes himself a minion
Beneath that despot's sway,-Opinion:
But unto all who worship truth,
I do commend thee, artless Ruth!

Thy lips are sweet! shall I tell why?
Those lips ne'er opened to a lie;
And round them dwells that simple grace,
The charm that consecrates thy face.
Thy mild yet fearless eye would brook
On Danger's hideous self to look;
And though the serpent tongue might lurk
With double venom for its work,

Thou hast one friend to guard thee-Truth:
She maketh thee strong-hearted,-Ruth!

And where thou lovest, thou dost love
With firmness nought on earth can move;
Like unto her whose name thou bearest,
Alike their joy or grief thou sharest;
Though Poverty might cloud their day,
Though wanderers through a thorny way
Their eyes thy light, their heart thy clime,
All evils thou wouldst dare-and Time
Would find thee, in thy warm heart's truth,
(Like her) their own devoted Ruth.

S. Y.

NOTES ON THE NEWSPAPERS.

Commencement of the Session.-The first fight has been well fought; the second is raging while we are writing.* Our readers are probably satiated with discussions on the speakership; and the people have pretty strongly evinced their gratified feeling in the reply which Mr. Abercromby's election gave to the ill advised authority that dissolved the late Parliament. The country is now in the hands of the Reformers. The robber faction is at their mercy; and if they pare not the tiger's claws, the responsibility

* It is just decided; let the Tories turn out, or cease to cant about the Constitution. According to the old forms of their idolatry, they are defunct, as a Government.

is on their own heads.

It is essential that the contest for supremacy between the people and the party should as soon as possible be brought to a final decision.

The King's speech is very Tamworthian.

It is constructed

with ingenious facility for the accommodation of those who are very desirous indeed of being gulled, or of having some excuse for appearing to be so. It throws no additional light on the plans of Ministers, or on anything else.

The satisfactory state of the trade and commerce of the country, and of the public revenue,' is a curious comment on the alleged occasion for dismissing the late Government and dissolving the Parliament. We thought that let well alone,' had been a maxim in some credit with the Tories, whom it has often served as a plea for any abuse not altogether intolerable, or the removal of which had not been rendered inevitable by popular indignation. The excuse set up for the confusion occasioned by their seizure of the government was, that the country could no longer bear a state of ceaseless agitation. They now confess that it was thriving under that agitation,-that they interposed under false pretences. One exception, indeed, is made. The 'agricultural interest' (save the mark !) is in great depression,' and the burdens on the owners and occupiers of land' are to be distributed over other descriptions of property.'-And this while the corn monopoly endures!

Those who read our last month's article on the elections will not need to be told our views of the amendment on the address. It may, perhaps, best embody the numerical strength of opposition; we should have preferred a better embodiment of its moral power.

Election Promises.—Before it was apparent that the choice of a speaker would become a question of great national importance, Mr. R. Ferguson, the member for East Lothian, had promised not to vote against Sir C. M. Sutton. Called on by his constituents to perform his duty,' he applied for a release from his promise, which was refused; and he therefore felt bound, as a man of honour, to abstain from voting. This conduct is generally lauded as very moral; and had Mr. Ferguson done his duty' to his constituents and his country, he would infallibly have been vituperated for a promise-breaker. There is some sophistry here, nor need we go to the abstract doctrine of promises for its detection. The acceptance of a trust is an implied promise of the most sacred description. A candidate's profession of principles renders the compact express. In his engagement to Sir C. M. Sutton, Mr. Ferguson violated (unintentionally) his previous promise to his constituents; the promise which would have been quite sufficiently made by the fact of his becoming their representative. That fact bound him to do whatever his judgment deemed best for the community. No personal engagement

Α

could absolve him from this prior and paramount obligation. trustee cannot, morally, bind himself to violate his trust. The first, great, and all-absorbing responsibility of a Member of Parliament is to the people. That must be a false notion of personal honour which exacts the performance of a promise to commit a public wrong. Yet such is the morality of the day. A gentleman must keep his word to a gentleman. He need not keep it to a rabble of electors,-nor to a friendless female,—all is fair in love and at elections. At lovers' perjuries Jove laughs," and at the professions of the hustings aristocracy sneers. Many a man may defy the imputation of a proven lie whose whole public life is the foulest of falsehoods. The first of all political promises, the only one which binds under all circumstances whatever, is to serve our country to the best of our judgment and ability.

In the present state of the suffrage, the electors are trustees as well as the elected. The ballot would, it is said, enable them to break faith with the candidate. Open voting continually compels them to break faith with their country. The last lie is the worst. A false promise does much mischief; a false vote does infinitely more. If the fulfilment of our duty to our country was not promised for us by our godfathers and godmothers in baptism, it was promised for us by God and nature in the gift of our moral being.

Cross Voting-In conformity, we believe, with the custom on such occasions, the candidates for the speakership of the House of Commons voted each for his opponent. The custom would have been more honoured in the breach than in the observance.' It is courtesy run mad: or rather, courtesy turned traitor. We should have been well pleased had Mr. Abercromby done the uncourteous on the occasion, and either voted for himself or left the house. Not that any difference would have been made in the result, as of course the opponents understood each other, and neutralized their own votes by compact, express or implied. But there would have been an important difference of moral effect. The vote of a legislator, on a vital question, ought not to be made, even in mere appearance, an affair of personal compliment. Mr. Abercromby's vote should have been the expression of Mr. Abercromby's opinion, and so should that of Sir C. M. Sutton have expressed his opinion; although the remark applies more strongly to Abercromby, as a Reformer, who had consented to identify himself with a public principle by coming forward in this important contest. His standing, and his vote, are in direct opposition. The one gives the lie to the other. We impute no blame to him but what would probably have been incurred by every other person who could have been selected for the same purpose; but the courtesy itself is so misplaced that we cannot omit noticing it for reprobation, and expressing our hope that the language of actions,

on such occasions, may be before long brought into conformity with the standard of truth.

Constitutional Servility.-The language and forms of British legislation, and of the administration of justice and other departments of Government, are in many instances founded on so slavish a theory of our political condition, that we should be astonished at their continuance, were it not that there is so much in our legal and ecclesiastical institutions to sustain the faith of hypocrisy in the creed of servility. An instance is before us, in the ceremony submitted to by the Speaker of the House of Commons, on his election. We take the record from the Morning Chronicle' of Saturday, Feb. 21:

HOUSE OF LORDS-FRIDAY.

"The hour of three having arrived, the Lords Commissioners took their seats at the foot of the throne. The Commissioners were, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, Earl Jersey, Lord Wharncliffe, and the Earl of Rosslyn.

The Usher of the Black Rod was then desired to summon the Commons.

In a short time the Speaker, accompanied by a considerable number of the Members of the House of Commons, appeared at the Bar. The Speaker was not in his full robes of office, but wore a short wig, and appeared without his gown. The following form was then gone through:

The Speaker, on presenting himself at the Bar, said: In obedience to his Majesty's commands, the Members of the House of Commons have proceeded, in the exercise of their undoubted right and privilege, to the election of a Speaker.

[What a jumble of the language of slaves and freemen! What a mixture of submission and assumption! Either the one is mere grovelling, or the other mere braggadocio. The undoubted right' of obedience is a rare privilege' to boast.]

'I have now to acquaint your Lordships that their choice has unworthily fallen on me, and I now submit myself to his Majesty's pleasure. [Formerly the Speaker petitioned his Majesty to direct the Commons to choose a better man. This species of insincerity is now left to the nolo episcopari professors. Its shadow remains 'unworthily' upon such a man, on such an occasion.]

The Lord Chancellor: We have it in charge to assure you that his Majesty is satisfied with your zeal for the service of the Commons, and your ample sufficiency for the duties of the office that they have selected you to discharge, and he most fully approves of their choice.

[It is pleasant to find the King so well pleased with what he hates. If he speaks truth by the Chancellor's mouth, there must be bouncing lies uttered on his behalf by other authorities.]

The Speaker: With all humility I submit myself to his Majesty's pleasure; and it is now my duty to ask and claim on behalf of his Ma