Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 339, January, 1844

As the foregoing topics will doubtless occupy much of the attention of parliament during the ensuing session, we were anxious to place on record our own opinions, as the result of much reflection, during a period when events were transpiring which threw upon the Government an awful responsibility, and rendered their course one of almost unprecedented difficulty. Modern times, we are convinced, have witnessed but few instances of such a masterly policy, combined with signal self-reliance.

One or two general topics connected with Ireland, we have time only to glance at. First.—From the faint reluctant disavowal and discouragement of Mr O'Connell and his Repeal agitation, by the leading ex-Ministers during the last session, when emphatically challenged by Sir Robert Peel to join him in denouncing the attempted dismemberment of the empire, irrespective and independent of all party consideration, we are prepared to expect that in the ensuing session, the Opposition will, to a great extent, make common cause with Mr O'Connell, out of mingled fear, and gratitude, and hope towards their late friend and patron. Such a course will immensely strengthen the hands of the Queen's Government.

Secondly.—To any thoughtful and independent politician, the present Sovereign state of Ireland demonstrates the utter impossibility of governing it upon the principle of breaking down or disparaging the Protestant interest. Such a course would tend only to bloody and interminable anarchy.

Thirdly.—Ireland's misery springs from social more than political evils; and the greatest boon that Providence could give her, would be a powerful government inflexibly resolved to put down agitation.

Lastly.—Can we wonder at the exasperation of the peasantry, who have for so many years had their money extorted from them, without ever having had, up to this moment, the shadow of an equivalent? And how long is this disgraceful pillage to go on? But we must conclude. The ensuing session of parliament may, and probably will, be a stormy one, and harassing to the Government; but they may prepare to encounter it with cheerful confidence. Their measures, during their brief tenure of office, have been attended with extraordinary success—and of that both the sovereign and the country are thoroughly aware, and we entertain high hopes concerning the future. We expect to see their strong majority in the House of Commons rather augmented than diminished by reason of the events which have happened during the recess. If the Ministers remain firm in their determination—and who doubts it?—to support the agricultural interests of the country, and persevere in their present vigorous policy towards Ireland, the Government is impregnable, and the surges of Repeal agitation in Ireland, and Anti-corn-law agitation in England, will dash against it in vain. So long as they pursue this course, they will be cheered by augmented indications of the national good-will, and of that implicit and affectionate confidence in their councils, which, we rejoice to know, is vouchsafed to her Ministers by our gracious Sovereign.

1

This work is now lost, and we know it only by the abstract given by Photius in the passage quoted.

2

The laws of Athens permitted the marriage of a brother with his sister by the father's side only—thus Cimon married his half sister Elpinice; and several marriages of the same nature occur in the history of the Egyptian Ptolemies.

3

Fair hair, probably from its rarity in southern climates, seems to have been at all times much prized by the ancients; witness the [Greek: Xanthos Menelaos] of Homer, and the "Cui flavam religas comam?" of Horace. The style of Leucippe's beauty seems to have resembled that of Haidee—

"Her hair, I said, was auburn; but her eyes Were black as night, their lashes the same hue."

4

One incident, where Clitophon pretends to have been stung on the lip by a bee, and to be cured by a kiss from Leucippe, has been borrowed by Tasso in the Aminta, (Act I. Scene 2.) "Che fingendo ch'un ape avesse morso il mio labbro di sotto," &c., whence the idea has been again copied by a host of later poetasters. This is not Tasso's only obligation to the Greek romances, as we have already seen that he was indebted to Heliodorus for the hint of his story of Clorinda.

5

These orders are said to have come from the "satrap," the Persian title having been retained under the Ptolemies, for the governors of the nomes or provinces. The description of the stronghold of the buccaniers, in the deep recesses of a marsh, and approachable only by a single hidden path, (like the stockades of the North-American Indians in the swamps, as described by Cotton Mather,) if not copied, like most of the other Egyptian scenes, from the Ethiopics, presents a curious picture of a class of men of whom few details are in authentic history.

6

The main street, according to Diodorus, was "forty stadia in length, and a plethrum (100 feet) in breadth; adorned through its whole extent by a succession of palaces and temples of the most costly magnificence. Alexander also erected a royal palace, which was an edifice wonderful both for its magnitude and the solidity of its architecture, and all the kings who have succeeded him, even up to our times, have spent great sums in further adorning and making additions to it. On the whole, the city may be fairly reckoned as the first in the world, whether for magnitude and beauty, for traffic, or for the greatness of its revenues."—"It comprehended," says Gibbon, speaking of it under the Roman Emperors, "a circumference of fifteen miles, and was peopled by 300,000 free inhabitants, besides, at least, an equal number of slaves."

7

Pamphilus was a Macedonian by birth, and a pupil of Eupompus, the founder of the school of Sicyon; to the presidency of which he succeeded. His pupils paid each a talent a year for instruction; and Melanthius, and even Apelles himself, for a time, were among the number.—Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxv. 36. The great talent of Melanthius, like that of his master Pamphilus, lay in composition and grouping; and so highly were his pictures esteemed, that Pliny, in another passage, says, that the wealth of a city would hardly purchase one.

8

Some bibliographers have assigned it to Photius; but the opinion of Achilles Tatius expressed by the patriarch, and quoted at the commencement of this article, precludes the possibility of its being from his pen.

9

See Mitford's History of Greece, ch. xiii, sect. 1.

10

Original "semstresses"

11

Original cut off between §s—Section completed with best guess of correct wording.

12

Lovely and loved! shall one slight hair Touch thy delicious lip with care? A heart like thine may laugh at Time— The Soul is ever in its prime. All Loves, you know, have infant faces, A thousand years can't chill the Graces! While thou art in my soul enshrined, I give all sorrows to the wind. Were I this hour but gay eighteen, Thou couldst be but my bosom's queen; I might for longer years adore, But could not, could not love thee more.

13

Speech to the Tamworth Electors on 28th June 1841, (Painter, Strand.)

14

Ayes, 312; Noes, 311—4th June 1841.

15

The following striking passage from the writings of the celebrated Dr Channing of America, was quoted by Sir Robert Peel in the speech under consideration. "Great Britain, loaded with an unprecedented debt, and with a grinding taxation, contracted a new debt of a hundred millions of dollars, to give freedom, not to Englishmen, but to the degraded African. I know not that history records an act so disinterested, so sublime. In the progress of ages, England's naval triumphs will shrink into a more and more narrow space in the records of our race—this moral triumph will fill a broader—brighter page." "Take care!" emphatically added Sir Robert Peel, "that this brighter page be not sullied by the admission of slave sugar into the consumption of this country—by our encouragement—and, too, our unnecessary encouragement of slavery and the slave-trade!"—Noble sentiments!

16

"We believe," says Mr McCulloch himself in another part of the pamphlet, (Longman & Co., 1841, p. 23—6th Edit.) from which Sir Robert Peel is quoting, "that land is more heavily taxed than any other species of property in the country—and that its owners are clearly entitled to insist that a duty should be laid on foreign corn when imported, sufficient fully to countervail the excess of burdens laid upon the land."

17

Speech, pp. 9, 10.

18

Do. p. 8.

19

Do. p. 13.

20

Speech, p. 15.

21

Do. p. 18.

22

Do. p. 18.

23

Great Britain at the commencement of the 19th Century—January 1843—No. CCC.

24

Thoughts on Tenets of Ministerial Policy. By a Very Quiet Looker-on.—P. 22. Aylott, London, 1843.

25

Hansard, Vol. lxi. Col. 439.

26

Poultry £5 for every £100 value; oxen and bulls, £1 each; cows, 15s.; calves, 10s.; horses, mares, foals, colts, and geldings, £1 each; sheep, 3s. each; lambs, 2s. each; swine and hogs, 5s. each—(Stat. 5 and 6 Vict. c. 47, Table A.)

27

Thoughts, &c., by a Quiet Looker-on, pp. 16, 17.

28

Debates, 11th June 1840.

29

League Circular, No. xxx. p. 3.

30

League Circular, No. 10.

31

Ibid. Nos. 26, 29, 44, 50, 71, 83, 94, 99, 100.

32

Among the Livery, the numbers were—Baring, 3196; Pattison, 2367;—majority for Baring, 889!

Among the Templars—Baring, 258; Pattison, 78!!—majority for Baring, 180!

33

Debates, May 30, 1820.

34

Ib. Dec. 24, 1819.

35

Authentic Discussions on the Corn-law, (Ridgway, 1839,) p. 86.

36

Extracted from a very admirable speech by Mr Day of Huntingdon, (Ollivier, 1843,) and which we earnestly recommend for perusal.

37

pp. 43, 50.

38

In conformity with this declaration, has been issued the recent commission, for "enquiring into the state of the law and practice in respect to the occupation of land in Ireland, and in respect also to the burdens of county cess and other charges, which fall respectively on the landlord and occupying tenant, and for reporting as to the amendments, if any, of the existing laws, which, having due regard to the just rights of property, may be calculated to encourage the cultivation of the soil, to extend a better system of agriculture, and to improve the relation between landlord and tenant, in that part of the United Kingdom."