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reporters and the reading public. The Whigs are adopting the policy which we ventured to anticipate for them: they are anxious to secure early hours and an easy life during the remainder of this Parliament; for the measure respecting towns, is the only thing promised of their own volition. The food measures are forced on them by the potato disease; and if the country had happily been exempted from that calamity, we might have had a blank year in Hansard. On the approved principles of the official school, there is little to be done after the supplies are voted. “Our party” is in power; and what more can be required? Education must necessarily have its proper share of attention, but is an exciting topic, which would disturb the peace of the country immediately before a general election; and it can wait. The bills for improving towns are most desirable, and might have been carried ere now-from the information collected and arranged at a large outlay to the public by several commissions. They are not, however, very likely to induce any considerable adverse agitation, for it will not be possible to raise a party in favour of fever. A few isolated individuals in different localities may consider their interests compromised by the measures; but they will command no sympathy from their neighbours, and will be unable to make up any available opposition against the Government. Petitions in support of narrow wynds, against scavengering, and light, and air, would be novelties in the House of Commons. Some credit and strength must be gained by this set of measures; and any opposition to them will be so futile and numerically weak that it can be disregarded. The bills, however, require to be watched; for many of those changes, recently styled improvements in towns, have had no title to the name. They have contributed to increase the rent, and reduce the accommodation of the poor. Splendid piles of buildings run through crowded localities have thrown poor families more densely back on the limited space reserved for them. Instead of serving even the better-paid classes of artizans, there can be no question that, in many large towns, their interests have suffered by improvements; but as so much time has been spent on the Government measures, and so much information accumulated respecting them, these evils must have been foreseen and may be avoided. Mr. Hume proposes the repeal of the timberduties, as connected with these sanatory measures; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that they produce one million annually, and he cannot spare the money. It is, however, impossible to carry any useful measure for the improvement of towns and still retain the windowtax. Light, like air, is necessary to healthful existence; and if the Ministry wish credit for a good sanatory measure, they must put the window-tax out of the way.

exception may arise to any rule; and that exception has fully arisen in the shipping trade, when it is incompetent to transact the requisite business at any price. There are, at present, large parcels of corn and flour waiting freight to this country; and while the owners are, probably enough, losing the season of high prices, the public suffer by the delay. The operation could have been, and yet can be, easily arranged. If the Government import grain, they can charge the current freight and carry the proceeds to the public account. Their vessels are probably not well contrived for the stowage of cargoes, and their voyages may not be profitable in their immediate returns; but any loss under that head will be amply compensated; and we should like, for an omen of future good, to see those noble ships, built to destroy, employed at last in saving life.

The suspension of the navigation laws will not materially affect freights, because other importing nations adopted that step previously, and have probably succeeded in engaging all the spare shipping that this measure would have attracted to our ports.

The suspension of the corn duty will prevent the reexport of flour and grain to France and Belgium, and may slightly reduce the selling price, although not to the extent of the duty itself. We confidently expect prices to fall soon, and farther than the amount of duty now payable, but not in consequence alone of the suspension of this law, which may, however, attract supplies that would have been sent to other countries except for this precaution. In course of the session, a motion against the renewal of the law will be submitted to both Houses.

The most important of the three measures in its effect on prices, is the permission to use sugar in breweries. The measure is consistent with the strictest justice to the colonists; and it is probable that in all seasons a considerable quantity of sugar will be used in the manufacture of beer-not alone, but for mixture. In distillation, sugars will only be employed either when they have reached a lower price than they have generally obtained, or in seasons like the present, when grain is above its average value; as we believe there are disadvantages in mixing them with grain for that purpose. The refusal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to admit the use of molasses in these works, on the ground that some trouble would be given to the excise in attending to the differential duties which must be charged, is one in many proofs of the strong tendency existing in his party to do things by halves. There could be no great difficulty in arranging the duties, or preventing fraud; and, although the subject is not of much public importance in ordinary seasons, yet for the emergency in this year even a small relief is of consequence. The duties on rum are to be reduced from 9s. 4d. to 8s. The measures proposed to increase the supply and re- 4d. in England, 4s. 2d. in Scotland, and 3s. 2d. in Ireduce the cost of grain were rapidly introduced. They land. They will stand at 6d. per gallon over the tax en experience no opposition, and have already been followed spirits in each country; and it is impossible to suppose by a considerable fall in the price of barley, and a smaller that this change will not cause an extensive course of reduction in the price of other grain. They are not, smuggling between Ireland and England. In home mahowever, equal to the crisis, and we regret that the Go-nufactured spirits it is probable that very little smuggling vernment have not followed the counsel given them by Lord George Bentinck, and by wiser men, in employing a number of our national vessels for importing grain. The rules of political economy would not have been invaded by this operation; for while the interference of government in commercial transactions is to be deprecated, yet an

has occurred, because the quantity used in England is comparatively small; but rum is sold there to the extent of 3,000,000 gallons annually-while in Ireland and Scotland the entire quantity at present used does not exceed 60,000 gallons per annum. The inconvenience, and the immorality of smuggling will arise in this instance

from the very absurd usage of enacting entirely different | juries" died from want"-which, for some time, have laws, and widely differential duties for different and been so common in Irish papers, might be successful in neighbouring portions of the same territory. delaying the measure so as to render it useless for this The resolution of Government not to suppress or to in-season's emergency. They would incur a frightful reterfere with distillation and malting, in our present circumstances, has led to some animadversion both in and out of Parliament. On the grounds adduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, their resolution is indefensible; for he declines to forbid the use of grain in these works, "because it is not worth while." He read a letter from " an eminent distiller" in Ireland, who told him "that by far the greater proportion of barley that will be used by distillers for the rest of the season will be foreign;"' and, on this authority, he says, "distillation from grain being practically stopped, it is not worth while to make any farther attempt that way." Now, the distiller did not say that distillation from grain was stopped, although foreign barley was substituted for English.— Foreign barley is grain; and, if it were not distilled, would be available for more useful and necessary purposes. The Government may very properly decline to move in this matter, if they believe that there is abundance of grain in the country, or available for this country, before the 1st September, to supply the population; but, if this be the case, then there has been, especially during December, a most unjustifiable degree of speculation in the grain trade. | Unquestionably, there is, at present, an immense quantity of corn in all the large seaport towns. The rapid rise of prices was, therefore, not caused by consumption, but by the purchases of capitalists, or parties with a temporary command of capital, who had reason to anticipate an absolute scarcity of food, and very high prices, in the ordinary course of consumption, between this period and harvest. They have been, we trust, misled. We believe that their opinions are erroneous, and that recent prices will not be maintained; for the Government may be supposed to have examined the matter closely, and have not been satisfied with assurances from "eminent merchants” and “eminent distillers," very probably, also, "eminent speculators," before they decided to avoid interference with an unnecessary traffic, even at the risk of incurring absolute starvation to many thousands.

The parties who censure the Government in this matter have their remedy; and if they really fear that, from the use of grain in the production of beer and spirits, there will be a deficiency before harvest, they can keep their own hands clear from the transaction. It is an affair in which every man can be his own lawgiver.

The remedial measures to be proposed are not in our possession while we write; but as the poor-law system of England will fall under reconsideration, we expect that the Irish poor-law will be amended, so as, probably, to admit out-of-door relief. The adoption of this course would necessarily compel the landowners to improve their properties; but it would be virulently opposed by them. They have formed a confederation in Dublin-an Irish party-with its offices there and in London, its secretaries and its staff. In this instance, they have the support of Mr. O'Connell and his friends-including the great majority of the priesthood, and all the existing Repeal Association. This singular combination of a popular party with the landlords of the country, against a plan for preventing the starvation of families, and the production of those sad verdicts of coroners'

sponsibility; and, although many of them are sincere in their opposition to the proposal, yet they should remember that it is only a spur to make them work. It will be finally carried; but relief is needed now, rather than at the end of the session, for in Ireland, in some districts of Scotland, we fear, in several counties of England, there is not labour, or remuneration for labour, to support life at the present cost of living. In Ireland, especially, the labours of the field are suspended. We are come nigh to seed-time, and there have been no preparations made. The thorough disarrangement of the rotation of crops by the disappearance of potatoes perplexes many farmers. In a number of districts the holdings are so small, that any other system of husbandry can scarcely be adopted, except that previously pursued where the spade did the plough's work-and, perhaps, did it well. The emergency thus presses so closely, that little time is left for consideration, and none for profitless debating. So short, indeed, is the time, that there can be little space now between thought and action. Mr. Labouchere calculates the actual loss of potatoes and oats in Ireland at £15,916,000. This estimate, we think, is considerably over the truth; but, if we take off twenty per cent. for exaggeration, the balance is £12,000,000-a sum sufficient to stun any country, but especially Ireland. By the same mode of calculation, the loss in the Highland districts and Islands of Scotland would be £1,000,000. It is, therefore, impossible that the capital necessary to employ the people could be found within these districts, but they have the means of repaying the outlay without ultimate loss to the proprietary, and with great advantage to all public interests. Neither Ireland nor the Highlands of Scotland need charity, but loans; and there is à wide difference between the two- the distinction between "to beg" and "to borrow." The Irish landlords or the Dublin Committee-require something, apparently, like a grant, which would not be valued, but wasted, if it were obtained. They will be all more grateful for money lent than for money given, when they find out that the first has been turned to good account, and remember that the latter would probably have been wasted. In another of their resolutions, this Committee cast upon the Government the responsibility of supporting the people, and the Government cannot escape the liability. They must provide against the recurrence of deaths by famine. It is impossible to tolerate habitual occurrences of that frightful character, until every resource has been exhausted. But the Government must present its alternative also. If the landlords cannot, or will not, bring their waste land under cultivation, they must resign its occupancy. There are noblemen on the Committee of Irish landlords who have around their mansions tracts of the finest land on their estates, laid out in pleasure-grounds, and inhabited almost solely by the beasts of the forest;and how can they calmly remind the Government of the public responsibility to support their tenantry, when they have thus closed up the means of affording them employment?

The owner of a great game preserve cannot surely, with a clear conscience, say that he has done his utmost to prevent famine; when, in fact, he is doing everything

permitted by his circumstances to cause want and distress. The man prefers the plumage of his pheasants to the comfort of his labourers; and talks, nevertheless, most eloquently of public responsibilities and Government duty.

The people of Britain will pay any taxes, and support their representatives in voting any sum, rather than hear of more Skibbereens, or have the feeling that men are perishing from the earth by want. But they will insist on an economy of resources for the time to come; and they will give their aid now, in a useful form-in a manner that admits repayment—by a channel that will add to the wealth of Ireland, and secure, so far as human prudence can secure us, against such terrible visitations again. The landlords appeal to the country for assistance; and it is not a severe condition to ask from them waste lands, which they hold but do not occupy, at their present value. They will not be poorer men, when the transfer is made, than they now are; but profitable labour will be found for the people, and large additions will be made to the produce of the country.

The difficulties of the case are greatly enhanced by the pressure for time. Old land must be sown or planted, and new land brought under culture, and constant work and wages found for half a million of persons to harvest time. The crisis will make the character of the Whigs for business habits, if they get through it creditably; although it would have been wiser to have called Parliament together early in December, when all the foreshading of this calamity was seen, than have waited on to the last-risking ruin by long debates, and depending on the self-denial of members to abstain from tedious speeches and hopeless amendments.

The administrative talents of the Whigs have never, probably, equalled their intentions. Even in this Irish business, they have already blundered at the cost of the country. They have been, it appears, purchasing corn, and laying it up in depôts, like the Hebrew statesman of Egypt, against an evil day. There is, indeed, a remarkable difference between Henry Labouchere and Joseph the patriarch in one respect. The Chief Secretary for Egypt made his purchases when corn was plentiful and cheap, and sold when it became high; while the Chief Secretary for Ireland bought on as corn went up, with the resolution of selling when matters came to the worst; although there is not a corn-factor in Liverpool who could not have told him that this was the policy to bring matters prematurely to the worst, or to create a panic that would not otherwise have existed. It is true that purchases on Government account were made to follow the markets. Credit is taken for that precaution, although it would certainly have been a remarkable matter if they had preceded the market, and given more per quarter or per barrel than the current prices of the day. No small part of the mischief originates in these purchases having been made in this country, and in small parcels, for they thus fed speculation. Any merchant knows that the sale of a few hundred quarters or à few thousand bushels more or less in a day will give a brisk or a dull tone to the market; and make the difference of rising or falling prices. This process has been running on for weeks, perhaps for months, encouraging and sustaining a speculation, which, if it be not based on fact, is most injurious to all interests. A

difficulty superior to the others, and over which the Government can have little control, will aggravate their trials. The circumstances of the Bank of France have become during December generally more embarassed than in the previous month. Our large imports of corn have been met by no corresponding export of manufactures, and must, therefore, be paid in bullion. In the third week of December there was in the Bank of England, in other English banks, and in the Banks of Ireland and Scotland, bullion to the value of two millions above the sum on hand at the corresponding period of last year. On the terms of the Currency Acts, several millions of gold, in addition to that sum, could be exported without reducing the real circulation. A tremor has, however, overspread the money market, and influential parties dread that all the spare stock will be insufficient. The Directors of the Bank of England, on the 14th December, raised their discounts to 3 per cent. on bills of 95 days, and on the 21st to 4 per cent. These steps, in the circumstances of the country, were the best that they could have adopted; but their consequences, joined to a reduction of £1,200,000 in the bullion of the Bank during the month, have had a very serious result on the price of socurities and the prospects of commerce, as a few quotations will show:

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Many smaller lines present greater reductions; and some, from local circumstances, have preserved their price. The preceding list, however, indicates sufficiently the pressure of the money market; and if it increase; in addition to the distress in Ireland, and of refugees from that country, the working hours of our manufacturing operatives may be farther reduced—their wages lessened, when bread is high-and the severity of that ordeal through which the country has to pass be indefinitely increased.

The currency question is considered dull, tedious, and uninteresting. Uninteresting: here is a miner toiling a hundred fathoms under the earth's surface; there is a blacksmith sweltering at a forge; yonder is a weaver labouring sixteen hours daily, for a pittance to sustain life, at his loom; a wearied female walks anxiously beside her spinning-frame; a hardy labourer is tending his plough-all are thoughtless of this grave subject; and yet, through all these classes, and every other class, an error in the currency may scatter dismay, idleness, and

want.

These circumstances will utterly destroy the repose that the Ministers may have anticipated during this session. They will be, however, free from the annoyances of party opposition. The crisis is too serious to admit that, and all parties are willing rather to aid than to obstruct them in attempting to meet its great responsibilities. They may command assistance, they can reckon upon indulgence, and, if strengthening with their trial, they produce their promised measures, in a form calculated to meet existing, and ward away threatened calamities, they will deserve forgiveness for many shortcomings.

PRINTED BY GEORGE TROUP, 29, DUNLOP STREET, GLASGOW.

TAIT'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

MARCH, 1847.

GEORGE CRABBE.

BY GEORGE GILFILLAN, AUTHOR OF A “GALLERY OF LITERARY PORTRAITS."

She

Oh where, indeed, can the unhappy repair, to escape from their own sorrows, or worse, from the unthinking glee or constitutional cheerfulness of others, more fitly than into the wastes and naked places of Nature? She will not then and there seem to insult them with her laughing luxuriance-her foliage fluttering, as if in vain display, with the glossy gilding of her flowers, or the sunny sparkle and song of her streamlets. But she will uplift a mightier and older voice. will soothe them by a sterner ministry. She will teach them "old truths, abysmal truths, awful truths." She will answer their sighs by the groans of the Creation travelling in pain; suck up their tears in the sweat of her great agonies; reflect their tiny wrinkles in those deep stabs and scars on her forehead, which speak of struggle and contest; give back the gloom of their brows in the frowns of her forests, her mountain solitudes, and her waste midnight darkness; infuse something, too, of her own sublime expectancy into their spirits; and dismiss them from her so

To be the Poet of the waste places of Creation -to adopt the orphans of the Mighty Mother to wed her dowerless daughters-to find out the beauty which has been spilt in tiny drops in her more unlovely regions-to echo the low music which arises from even her stillest and most sterile spots was the mission of Crabbe, as a descriptive poet. He preferred the Leahs to the Rachels of Nature: and this he did not merely that his lot had cast him amid such scenes, and that early associations had taught him a profound interest in them, but apparently from native taste. He actually loved that beauty which stands shivering on the brink of barrenness-loved it for its timidity and its loneliness. Nay, he seemed to love barenness itself; brooding over its dull page till there arose from it a strange lustre, which his eye distinctly sees, and which in part he makes visible to his readers. It was even as the darkness of cells has been sometimes peopled to the view of the solitary prisoner, and spiders seemed angels, in the depths of his dungeon. We can fancy, too, in Crabbe's mind, a feeling of pityciety, it may be sadder, but certainly wiser men. for those unloved spots, and those neglected glories. We can fancy him saying, "Let the gay and the aspiring mate with Nature in her towering altitudes, and flatter her more favoured scenes; I will go after her into her secret retirements, bring out her bashful beauties, praise what none are willing to praise, and love what there are very few to love.' From his early circumstances besides, there had stolen over his soul a shade of settled though subdued gloom. And for sympathy with this, he betook himself to the sterner and sadder aspects of Nature, where he saw, or seemed to see, his own feelings reflected, as in a sea of melancholy faces, in dull skies, waste moorlands, the low beach, and the moaning of the waves upon it, as if weary of their eternal wanderings. Such, too, at moments, was the feeling of Burns, when he strode on the scaur of the Nith, and saw the waters red and turbid below; or walked in a windy day by the side of a plantation, and heard the "sound of a gong" upon the tops of the trees or when he exclaimed, with a calm simplicity of bitterness which is most affecting

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"The leafless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine."

VOL. XIV.NO. CLIX

How admirably is Nature suited to all moods of all men! In spring, she is gay with the lighthearted; in summer, gorgeous as its sun to those fiery spirits who seem made for a warmer day; in autumn, she spreads over all hearts a mellow and unearthly joy; and even in winter-when her temple is deserted of the frivolous and the timid, who quit it along with the smile of the sun

she attracts her own few but faithful votaries, who love her in her naked sculpture, as well as in her glowing pictorial hues, and who enjoy her solemn communion none the less that they enjoy it by themselves. To use the words of a forgotten poet, addressing Spring

"Thou op'st a storehouse for all hues of men.

To hardihood thou, blustering from the North, Roll'st dark-hast sighs for them that would complain; Sharp winds to clear the head of wit and worth; And melody for those that follow mirth;

Clouds for the gloomy; tears for those that weep; Flowers blighted in the bud for those that birth

Untimely sorrow o'er; and skies where sweep Fleets of a thousand sail for them that plough the deep."

Crabbe, as a descriptive poet, differs from other modern masters of the art, alike in his selection of subjects, and in his mode of treating

L

the gallows of some miserable man-the gorse surrounding with yellow light the encampment of the gypsies the few timid flowers, or "weeds of glorious feature," which adorn the brink of ocean

the snow putting out the fire of the pauper, or lying unmelted on his pillow of death-the web of the spider blinding the cottager's window-the wheel turned by the meagre hand of contented or cursing penury—the cards trembling in the grasp of the desperate debauchee-the day stocking forming the cap by night, and the garter at midnight-the dunghill becoming the accidental grave of the drunkard-the poor-house of forty years ago, with its patched windows, its dirty environs, its moist and miserable walls, its inmates all snuff, and selfishness, and sin-the receptacle of the outlawed members of English society (how different from "Poosie Nancy's!"), with its gin-gendered quarrels, its appalling blasphemies, its deep debauches, its ferocity without fun, its huddled murders, and its shrieks of disease dumb in the uproar around-the Bedlam of forty years ago, with its straw on end under the restlessness of the insane; its music of groans, and shrieks and mutterings of still more melancholy meaning; its

above the wintry cataract; its songs dying away in despairing gurgles down the miserable throat; its cells how devoid of monastic silence; its confusion worse confounded, of gibbering idiocy, monomania absorbed and absent from itself as well as from the world, and howling frenzy; its daylight saddened as it shines into the dim, vacant, or glaring eyes of those wretched men; and its moonbeams shedding a more congenial ray upon the solitude, or the sick-bed, or the death-bed of derangement:-such familiar faces of want, guilt, and woe-of nakedness, sterility, and shame, does Crabbe delight in showing us; and is, in very truth

the subjects he does select. Byron moves over nature with a fastidious and aristocratic step -touching only upon objects already interesting or ennobled, upon battle fields, castellated ruins, Italian palaces, or Alpine peaks. This, at least, is true of his "Childe Harold," and his earlier pieces. In the later productions of his pen, he goes to the opposite extreme, and alights, with a daring yet dainty foot, upon all shunned and forbidden things-reminds us of the raven in the Deluge, which found rest for the sole of her foot upon carcasses, where the dove durst not stand-rushes in where modesty and reserve alike have forbidden entrance-and ventures, though still not like a lost archangel, to tread the burning marle of Hell, the dim gulph of Hades, the shadowy ruins of the Pre-Adamitic world, and the crystal pavement of Heaven.—Moore practises a principle of more delicate selection, resembling some nice fly which should alight only upon flowers, whether natural or artificial, if so that flowers they seemed to be; thus, from sunny bowers, and moonlit roses, and gardens, and blushing skies, and ladies' dresses, does the Bard of Erin extract his finest poetry.-Shelley and Coleridge attach themselves almost exclu-keepers cold and stern, as the snow-covered cliffs sively to the great-understanding this term in a wide sense, as including much that is grotesque and much that is homely, which the magic of their genius sublimates to a proper pitch of keeping with the rest. Their usual walk is swelling and buskined: their common talk is of great rivers, great forests, great seas, great continents; or else of comets, suns, constellations, and firmaments as that of all half-mad, wholly miserable, and opium-fed genius is apt to be.-Sir Walter Scott, who seldom grappled with the gloomier and grander features of his country's scenery, (did he ever describe Glenco or Foyers, or the wildernesses around Ben mac Dhui?) had-need we say? the most exquisite eye for all picturesque and romantic aspects, in sea, shore, or sky; and in the quick perception of this element of the picturesque lay his principal, if not only descriptive power.Wordsworth, again, seems always to be standing above, though not stooping over, the objects he describes. He seldom looks up in rapt admiration of what is above; the bending furze-bush and the lowly broom-the nest lying in the level clover-fieldthe tarn sinking away seemingly before his eye into darker depths the prospect from the mountain summit cast far beneath him; at highest, the star burning low upon the mountain's ridge, like an "untended watchfire:"-these are the objects which he loves to describe, and these may stand as emblems of his lowly yet aspiring genius. Crabbe, on the other hand, "stoops to conquer" -nay, goes down on his knees, that he may more accurately describe such objects as the marsh given over to desolation from immemorial time-the slush left by the sea, and revealing the dead body of the suicide the bare crag and the stunted tree, which comes, it may be, from the Great Bear, diversifying the scenery of the saline wilderness— or Arcturus and his sons. And, when he doesthe house on the heath, creaking in the storm, and as in some of his feebler verses-strive to see out telling strange stories of misery and crime-the of this medium, he drops his mantle, loses his pine in some wintry wood, which had acted as vision, and describes little better than would

"Nature's sternest painter, yet the best." In his mode of managing his descriptions, Crabbe is equally peculiar. Objects, in themselves counted commonplace or disgusting, frequently become impressive, and even sublime, when surrounded by interesting circumstances when shown in the moonlight of memory-when linked to strong passion-or when touched by the ray of imagination. Then, in Emerson's words, even the corpse is found to have added a solemn ornament to the house where it lay. But it is the peculiarity and the daring of this poet, that he often, not always, tries us with truth and nothing but truth, as if to bring the question to an issue-whether, in Nature, absolute truth be not essential though severe poetry. On this question, certainly, issue was never so fully joined before. In even Wordsworth's eye there is a misty glimmer of imagination, through which all objects, low as well as high, are seen. Even his "five blue eggs" gleam upon him through a light which comes not from themselves

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