He is
From

consideration' to the reform of the Church of England. sadly behind, and should have left Rome a day sooner. some millions of people, the Church has had a 'grave consideration,' and has commenced digging it herself.

It is asked, with great seeming simplicity, whether it should be assumed that the effect of the Reform Act was so to fetter the prerogative of the Crown, that the King has no free choice among his subjects; he must select his Ministers from one section, and one section only, of public men?' Premising that one section' is here a felicitous phrase for the whole people, with the exception of the Tories, we answer that, though, legally, the Reform Act does not limit the sovereign to the choice of Reform Ministers, yet that morally it does; that having given his assent to that Act in accordance with the nation's will, he could not be expected to assign the powers of Government to its enemies; and that if Sir Robert Peel and the Tories believing, as they have always declared, that Act to have been destructive of the Constitution, take office to govern in its spirit, they are also, in their own consciences, traitors to the nation; and if they do not so intend to govern, while yet they conceal and disavow their purpose, then are they traitors in the people's estimation, and hypocrites by their own showing. The prerogative, like every privilege, is limited by the laws of honour and consistency. The criminal code, like the Reform Act, confines the King's choice to one section of public men; that section which has not been convicted of felony.

The Duke's man has done his best; but it will not do. The fiercer folks of the party have shouted the Waterloo war-cry, Up, boys, and at them,' but the National Guard of England will more easily sustain the onset than did the old Imperials. Electoral conflicts are not to be decided by the sword of a Wellington. And if, for a moment, victory should seem to incline towards it,

'Humanity will rise, and thunder Nay?'

The Cheltenham Free Press.-This paper is a spirited attempt to establish a vehicle for the diffusion of sound political knowledge and principle. It deserves circulation and support far beyond the limits of Gloucestershire. The editor is evidently a man of superior education, intelligence, fervour, and energy. Such are wanted to manage the much-abused machinery of public instruction. The articles on the Ballot are admirable; and so is the acuteness with which the editor exposes the danger to the people of being misled by the cry of Union at the approaching elections. He thinks, as we do, that all Reformers should unite; but that we should make sure that we are uniting with Reformers. There will be gross juggling and deception on this point. The Reformers are those who will reform further,

and whose conduct has given evidence to that effect. Those who will advance not a step beyond the Reform Bill, ought to be sent after those who were kicked out for not going so far. Their day is gone by. The recent change is sufficient evidence that the people have not yet power enough. The experiment may fail; but with household suffrage, triennial parliaments, and the ballot, would such an experiment have been attempted? We trow not. We deserve that it should succeed, unless we take measures to prevent its repetition.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

Tales of Woman's Trials. By Mrs. S. C. Hall.

THERE is much of sweetness and grace, much also of feeling and discrimination in Mrs. Hall's writings; and they are pervaded by the earnestness of religious principle. The careful parent, who is rather jealous of fiction generally, will find in them none of the qualities which indispose him to trust tale, novel, or romance in his children's hands. They uphold the recognised morality of the day, in so far as it is sound, and also in so far as it is conventional.

We opened this volume with some curiosity to see how a woman's pen would portray woman's trials. The endurances to which the female heart is doomed in the present state of society, the sources of its strength, the means of deliverance, and the prospect of amelioration, these are themes which woman best can handle; but to do justice to them requires no common degree of intellect, observation, or courage. On these subjects Mrs. Hall has thrown little new light; but she has produced a succession of interesting and touching stories, the chief moral of which seems to be, submission here and heaven hereafter; a good moral whenever the mischief is incurable; but a misleading one, if the maxim of English law obtains in the government of the world, that wherever there is a wrong, there is a remedy. The heroines of many of her stories might have studied to advantage the writings of the strong-minded author of 'Cleone', whose remarks, in a former part of this number, may perhaps give Mrs. Hall herself a more just and vigorous conception of the condition and duties of her sex.

The sneer at the march of intellect' (p. 9) and the ascription of gross vice to the principles of equality, the rights of women, and Mr. Owen's morality,' (p. 273,) are not creditable to Mrs. Hall. Yet we can forgive her much for a sentiment so beautiful and true as the following:

'Let no one make sport of youthful sorrow-it is the bitterest we are doomed to endure in our course through life; the trials of after age are, doubtless, more real, but not so intense; they are of the world, worldly-it is seldom they are unselfish-rarely untutored. Let any of us recall the devotedness of our first real grief, the anguish of our first real disappointment, and remember how literally it was deep and heartfelt-how perfectly mind and body were stricken during its continuance, and then, in justice to fast-coming memories, we can never make sport of early sorrowings.'-p. 27,

Many sentiments of similar beauty are scattered over these narratives, mingled with others more questionable, though they will perhaps be more generally adopted, and with some humour, especially in the delineation of Irish character, which all will appreciate, or at least enjoy.

Turner's Annual Tour; the Seine.

THE Indian, in the American wilderness, delights to track a river to its source; and we have here a proof of how much enjoyment may result from a similar expedition in the most civilized regions of Europe. Many persons may perhaps think the subject not well chosen, before they open the book; few can think so afterwards. Other routes or rivers might have afforded much more of material for what is called the picturesque; but we can scarcely imagine the production of a succession of more beautiful pictures. We would, however, advise the rambler who may be stimulated hereby to explore the course of the Seine for himself, to be sure and bespeak Turner's moons for his voyage. It were better else to leave the engravings at home; and in some cases to stay at home with them. Any way, Leitch Ritchie, who furnishes the printed prose to Turner's pictured poetry, will be found a most pleasant companion.

Mornton. By Margaret Cullen. Fourth edition.

THE publication of the fourth edition of a novel, without any adventitious sources of popularity, may well exempt it from criticism. It may perhaps create another duty for the censor, and a not less useful one, viz., that of accounting for the phenomenon. The causes, in this case, are by no means obvious. On commencing the perusal of Mornton,' the dialogue certainly appeared to us sensible, but rather dull and trite; and we felt a general lack of interest, both in character and incident. About the middle of the first volume, however, we were roused by a critique on Southey's Life of Nelson, and on the character of Nelson himself, which abounds in truth, vigour, clearness, and courage. Many similar discussions, on various topics of importance, in morals, manners, politics, and literature, are interspersed through the work, and form, to our taste, its best portion. If we cannot always coincide in the sentiments of the writer, we must yet do justice to their general soundness, purity, and useful tendency. Amongst other feelings which do her honour, she manifests, and portrays, in her heroine, a very strong one on the humane treatment of animals, which is often argumentatively, and sometimes affectingly enforced. The interest of the narrative increases very much in the concluding volume, and the mental struggles of the heroine are depicted with a power which must find its way to the heart.

The Resources and Statistics of Nations. By John MacGregor. Part I. 4s. 6d.

THIS work is to be completed in eight or nine monthly parts. It contains, in a compact tabular form, with brief comments, a prodigious mass of information, which it must have cost immense labour to collect and arrange. All the branches of statistics, natural, political, moral, and economical, are comprised in the plan. We trust the circulation of a

work so useful, and indeed essential, to the politician, the merchant, and the philosopher, and so convenient for all who have any care about the world we live in, will bear some proportion to the expenditure of time and toil by the compiler.

The British Almanac, and Companion.
The British Household Almanac.

The British Working-Man's Almanac.

THE above are published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, to which society we are indebted for the great almanacreformation which has been so happily accomplished. They are all full of information of a practical description, and of constant application; and the Companion' sustains the character which it has so well earned in former years. The exertions of the Society in this department amply entitle it to the gratitude of the country.

Dodsley's Economy of Human Life. London: Van Voorst. 1834. AN embellished and elegant edition of a work which has long been too popular to require description or criticism.

Selections from the American Poets. London: Simpkin and Marshall. We must so far confess our ignorance of American poetry as to allow that we are not certain that it is not more the fault of the selector than of the poets, that there is, in this volume, so decided a preponderance of mere description and common-place sentiment. Of the fact of that preponderance, we are quite certain; and equally so of the result, that the volume will be chiefly acceptable to that class of persons with which a sort of sober sentimentalism passes for poetry, and goodness, and all that is valuable. There are several pieces of Bryant, who is already pretty well known in this country; as is Paulding, from whom there is only a single extract. The selections from Brainard and Pierpont have more of originality than perhaps any others; and the song of The Pilgrim Fathers,' by the latter, is a beautiful lyric. As this appeared in some of our periodicals soon after the occasion for which it was written, (the Centenary of the Landing of the Exiles,) we prefer giving, as a favourable sample of the lighter compositions in this volume, the following verses by N. P. Willis :

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

'I love to look on a scene like this,
Of wild and careless play,

And persuade myself that I am not old,

And my locks are not yet grey;

For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart,
And it makes his pulses fly,

To catch the thrill of a happy voice,

And the light of a pleasant eye.

I have walked the world for fourscore years,
And they say that I am old,

And my heart is ripe for the reaper, Death,
And my years are well nigh told,

!

Appendix to the Black Book. By the original Editor.

P. 170.

As we said of the Black Book' itself, so say we of this Appendix to it; every man who is interested in the condition and improvement of the country, should have this book at hand for reference.' To which may be added, that the Appendix' should instantly be procured, and consulted for information of the most varied and valuable description, in connexion with the coming elections. It is the Elector's Guide Book, and the Candidate's Test Book, and the Ministerial Character Book. It is powder and shot for the Reformers, and bad pieces must they be that miss fire when loaded with it. We cannot give even the briefest epitome of the information it contains, and which is rendered so much more valuable by the clear-headed comments of the Editor. In an Advertisement at the end, he announces 'that he is ready to offer himself (free of expense) a candidate for the representation of any city or borough in Parliament, in opposition to a Tory or Conservative Whig.' And if ever man ought to be returned 'free of expense,' it is such a man as this who would be sure, in the exercise of his peculiar talent, to repay the public very handsomely all that he could possibly cost them. But the public is given to be penny-wise and pound-foolish in politics. Mr. Wade would be well worth a liberal salary in addition to the cost of his election. And yet his offer will probably remain unaccepted, while constituencies, of which the majority call themselves Reformers, are putting up with mere idlers and trimmers, on the strength of a few indefinite promises. Let us get fairly through this last conflict with Toryism, and then there must be some discussion on what Bentham termed the Appropriate Intellectual Aptitude' for the work of Legislation and Government.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The American Sketches,' and other communications, are unavoidably postponed, Will C. P. send to our office?