has once perused them can erase from his heart or memory the beau tiful effusions of Captain M- -? especially if, like me, he has often heard their author sing them at the festive board, the sparkling bumper elevated in his right hand; his eye "in a fine frenzy rolling=" the feeling of his whole convivial nature animating his voice, while he enchanted his auditors by the double attraction of poetry and melody; thus refining the sensual gratifications of the banquet by the noblest enjoyments of the intellect! Of such a man, so expressly formed to adorn the social and the festive scene, and therefore so constitutionally prone to indulge, perhaps to an excess, in its delights, the old age, when he attains it (which is of rare occurrence), is still more rarely enviable: yet M, I hear, has travelled cheerfully and contentedly down the vale of years, unruffled by the ingratitude of friends who in death forgot their living promises, visited by fewer ailments than might have been expected from his course of earlier revelry, still cultivating at intervals the willing muse, and still able, though with a less steady hand than heretofore, to toss off an occasional bumper. His compositions, it is said, have assumed a somewhat grave and devotional turn, while his advanced years, and the cares due to his health, are "ever in his flowing cups remembered." But this is as it should be, and thus may he continue "ducere solicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ." Separated as I now am, and have been for many years, from this lyrical patriarch, I see so little hope of our ever meeting again, that "vix mea sustinuit dicere lingua Vale!" I had intended to commemorate others, not all unknown to fame, survivors of those with whom I have shared the "Noctes cœnasque Divûm," and whose cheerful wit still blooms around my recollection like a chaplet of roses; but though I began this paper in a merry, or rather a merry-andrew mood, a sadness has gradually stolen over me as I proceeded. "O my coevals, remnants of yourselves!" how can I advert to ye, fallen as so many of ye are into age, decrepitude, and oblivion, without feeling that I am myself far advanced towards that dark bourne from which no traveller returns? It is well sometimes to study our contemporaries, in order that we may understand ourselves; for we shall often discover in their time-worn features and bent bodies what our own glass fails to reveal to us; ay, and in their doting discourse, we may find a reflection of that mental decay in ourselves for which we keep no other honest mirror. And how frequently do I encounter a hiatus valdè deflendus as I run over in my mind the list of those bright intellects and cordial comrades with whom I have so often laughed and quaffed, and shared with them the pleasant country walk, "not wanting sweet discourse, the banquet of the mind;" or the London merry meeting among the spirits of the age; or the well-filled box at the theatre on the first night of a new play. Methinks I should have first woven a funeral wreath for the departed, once the life of the lively and the darlings of the convivial circle, before I placed a paltry, and perhaps unacceptable garland, upon the head of their survivors. Enough there are, and to spare, who will extol the great, and the rich, and the living-be it mine to record, in such brief and hasty stanzas as time and space allow, a few of those dear departed, whose memories none of their acquaintance would willingly let die, nor suffer them to pass away without the meed of some melodious tear." Not as a worthy tribute to the dead, but as a momentary solace to the writer, hath he composed for them this short and trifling epicedium;—1) · Lords of the sword, and ermined robe, Not to the brave of other days, ** A soldier's grave, a soldier's fame, The battle-field he help'd to win- Oft I recall, dear friend, thy face, Alas! how numerous are the dead! And sooth'd the sorrows of life's pilgrimage? Percy is gone, the pure and good, bith 291932 On 'patriot hopes and philanthropic schemes; By Thames's bank and Cliefden's grove, The porpus sports, and ships sail on Of him whose living breath was never mute to es "And Reton too, whose merry voice bipode 1 sdmtrol hairangamit Or ready joke made all rejoice, to givFadi sono batuesh baby Setting the raptured table in a roar, Whom all could as a wit commend, O death-recording pen, desist! Of those in whom my loving heart had trust:- Your arms once inore, some buried friend! Alas! what business have I here? THE MONTH IN PARLIAMENT. County-division Clause, and Lord Chandos's Amendment. AUGUST 23.-The Gods propitious-there is a chance of the Bill's " 'progressing" through Committee by Christmas or Easter next at farthest! We are now arrived at the twenty-first clause, after tugging eight hours a-day for the last six weeks, and there are only about forty more to be discussed, with a little supplement of twenty-seven amendments;-not to say any thing of some score changes of detail which Ministers themselves will probably propose by way of expediting the termination of their arduous labours, and convincing the public of their unerring foresight in providing against contingencies. When we last had to invite the attention of our readers to the progress of the great measure of National regeneration, which is now-thanks to its sapient conductors-snail-pacing it at a rate to which the progress of the Sloth in the Zoological Gardens is that of a race-horse to a Dutchman-the Committee was engaged in discussing the tenth clause, so that in one month the well-meaning imbeciles have contrived to get through eight clauses, (the twelfth was withdrawn and they were defeated on the sixteenth,) and to so disgust the best friends of Reform, that they have been left in a minority of eighty on a point of essential importance to the character of the whole measure! And yet the smile of self-complacent feebleness sits as blooming on the occupants of the ministerial bench, as if they were so many Heaven-born statesmen whose success had been as triumphant as it was rapid. Why do we remark these things? Is it that we are not heart and soul devoted to the cause of Reform? or that we should be pleased to see the Tory faction once more the Lords of Misrule? We were Reformers long before it became the fashion; through good repute and bad repute we were, as far as our means enabled us, its unflinching advocates; and now that the battle is won, we are not disposed to see the fruits of victory marred by the misconduct of those whom the accident of an accident has lifted to the command. We were, we may say it without arrogance, the first to declare that from a Ministry constituted like the present-it would be idle to expect a measure based on such lofty and comprehensive principles that to all intents and purposes it might be hailed as a final and perfect system of representation; but we were also among the first to thankfully receive it "for better-for worse" as it was, confident that the principle of Reform having been once acted upon by the Legislature, the thousand-and-one anomalies of not only the present Bill, but of other measures warranted to "work well," would soon meet with an efficient remedy. For the same reasons we would gladly take it even with its Chandostenant-at-will" amendment” added to its other imperfections, trusting to a Reformed Parliament and the diffusion of knowledge, which would be its first and most important result-for a specific countercharm. As to the notion of wishing to contribute, however feebly, to the restoration of the Goulburns and the Aberdeens, et hoc genus omne, to power, we really know not how to offer a serious disclaimer. The supposition is too absurd even for themselves to entertain: we question if even their friend Don Miguel himself would just now accept of their services as ministers, however strong their claims on the score of devoted zeal to the cause of intolerance and brute despotism. What! the fag-end remnant of a Tory faction again preside over the destinies of a great and enlightened nation, roused to a man to a sense of its too long borne wrongs, and throbbing with intense anxiety for the welfare of a measure which alone can put an end to the evils of a system of oligarchical plunder, and enable the middle classes to prosecute the means of good government! Then is doomsday near, and the sun not shining at noon-day in the heavens, and knowledge and wealth not power, and men not solicitous for their own welfare! The notion, we repeat, is too absurd to occupy even for a moment a place in those intellectual vacuums, the crania of the representatives of the "sister" Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and at a proper distance-of Sept.-VOL. XXXII. NO. CXXIX. T Dublin-the most perfect things in their way-the mental Torricellianat present to be found at St. Stephen's. J Having made these preliminary observations in justice to ourselves, and to prevent misconception on the part of the reader, we proceed to offer a few remarks on the probable effect of the County division clause, and on the Marquis of Chandos's "amendment," (for such it is designated in the "Votes") by which 501. tenants at will are substituted to leaseholders at seven years, as voters for Knights of the Shire,-the two most important topics discussed in Parliament during the last month. And first THE COUNTY DIVISION CLAUSE.-Against this clause the Times, a journal of great ability and still greater influence, has directed two or three of its deadliest thunderbolts," on the ground that by narrowing the physical area-so to speak of representation, the great landed proprietors of the district will be enabled to exert an influence incompatible with the independence of elections. In all the small counties, Westmoreland for example, the nobleman possessing the largest single estate is enabled to nominate whom he pleases, because the direct influence of his property is felt over a comparatively extensive surface of the county, while in the large counties no single property can bear such a relative proportion to the whole area of representation as would enable it to weigh down or absorb the several minor "independent" interests which are scattered over the surface. But then, argues the Times, by dividing these large counties into divisions in the manner proposed in the Bill, the great landholder in each division will be made as absolute and paramount as the House of Lonsdale used to be in the snug Lowther borough of Westmoreland, the balancing check of a wide surface of constituency being, according to the very terms of the proposition, destroyed; and the result will be, that at least one hundred out of the one hundred and forty-four members of English counties, to be returned under the Bill, will be as much, to all intents and purposes, the nominees of the aris tocracy, as the present representatives of the Gattons and the Old Sarums. There can be no doubt that the apprehensions in this statement are in a degree well founded; but it strikes us that they too clearly indicate a want of faith on the part of the writer in the influence of public opinion, daily become more and more enlightened,-in providing a proper antidote. It cannot be denied, in jus→ tification of this want of faith in the public spirit of the mass of county electors, that in a question between pelf and principle, between the interest of the individual purse and the general weal, the mammon habits of the people of England, as they have hitherto invariably manifested themselves, afford little hope that the former would be sacrificed to the latter; but still we think sufficient allowance is not made for the developement and exercise of those loftier principles of action, and for the diffusion of sound principles of political morality, which we confidently look forward to as the first and best result of that system of good government from which the Reform Bill derives all its importance and value as a means to an end. We are not of those who would sedulously guard the electors of England against all possible personal inconveniences in the exercise of their political rights. Without indulging in Utopian dreams of the perfectibility of the human species, we augur better of our fellow-countrymen than thus to deprive them of the free play of their moral energies. We will go farther, and avow that tumultuosa libertas tranquillitati probrosæ anteponenda est, is a favourite political maxim of ours, and that we should prefer such institutions as tend to the exercise of moral energy, and, as a consequence, to the generation of lofty principles of action, to those which would more perfectly secure the person and property of the subject than even our own excellent constitution, without affording proper scope for the growth and display of our more generous feelings. It is on this account, and this account only, that we are slow to avow ourselves converts to the necessity of the ballot system of voting. We should prefer, we repeat, seeing the electors in the conscious and above-board dignity of freemen worthy of the name, tendering their votes openly in favour of the candidates of their choice, instead of screening themselves from the rich despot of the district by the secret exercise of the right of suffrage. But it may |