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LITERARY REGISTER.

Journal of a Few Months' Residence in Portugal, and ber. One of their grand amusements while there was to Glimpses of the South of Spain. 2 vols. London: go down to the beach and witness the bathing. The Moxon.

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and even the names of places and ships, in blank, cutting

them off with a dash, as if she was anxious to throw some degree of mystery around her wanderings. However much this love of the anonymous may detract from the value of her book, as a work of authority on the subjects treated of, it cannot affect its claims to praise, either for liveliness of style or beauty of description.

following scene is truly Portuguese :

"The Portuguese, high and low, have great faith in the efficacy of a course of sea baths, and all seem to think

there is a charm in exact numbers. The Fidalgo will on no account cease from his dippings till his number, whatever it may be, seventy or ninety, or more or less, is complete ; and the poor man, who may be able to spare only one day from daily labour, will compress his number into the twenty-four hours, taking forty or fifty, or perhaps more dips in that space of time. There is a charm in days too, and the anniversary of St. Bartholomew is among the poorer classes the great day. This year it fell upon a Sunday, and the concourse of people was imthick as they could stand, for two or three miles. The mense. The shore was literally covered with bathers process began before five o'clock A.M., and was on this day scarcely ended at sunset. The peasants come from great distances, are dressed in their holiday attire, and strange to my English eye in our village, the Foz, this day. The as various were the costumes that presented themselves massive gold chains and ear-rings of the women surprised me most; chain upon chain, the weight of which must have been oppressive to many a slender neck that I saw the village made even the Portuguese look round. A thus adorned. One figure of a group that passed through lady on a fine black mule, attended by a gentleman on a very handsome black horse, and followed by two running quick jog-trot of the animals. The Senhor was dressed footmen; and indeed they had to run to keep up with the

We learn incidentally that the authoress went to Portugal for her health. Her impressions of that country are certainly more agreeable than what might have been supposed, from the ideas generally entertained in England of that portion of the Peninsula and its inhabitants. It occupies, at present, rather a prominent feature in European politics, and this Journal of a Residence in it will derive some additional interest from the peculiar circumstances in which it is placed, just at this particular time. There is, perhaps, no country in Europe that has been less visited by professional bookmakers, and fashionable tourists, for the purposes of description, and there is none that is so little familiar to English readers. The authoress seems to know the character of the country and of the peo- as any English gentleman might be dressed for taking a ple well, and to have rather a favourable opinion of both. ride on the Steyne at Brighton. But his Senhora! She "The worst symptom," she says, in her preface, with was the wonder. Attired in a rich black silk, curiously striking truth, in the modern character of Portugal, fashioned, fitting tight to the figure, and showing off the and one, indeed, which to us at a distance, does make well-rounded waist; on her head a large square clear the Portuguese appear ridiculous, is that everlasting civil-white muslin kerchief richly embroidered round the edge, warring on a small scale, which seems to begin without a plan, to pause without a result, and after a sullen lull to be resumed without any definite aim. But, for these turbulent humours, the mass of the people are far less to blame than some of their upstart rulers, who, availing themselves of the evils of a disputed succession, have made the instability of the throne, and the fever of the public mind, subserve their dishonest ambition, like thieves to whom an earthquake or a fire is an opportunity for plunder."

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The first volume, and the early portion of the second, are almost exclusively devoted to Portugal. The main object of the authoress in writing her journal was an amiable one-it was the wish to assist in removing the prejudices entertained against the Portuguese by many, even of our most intelligent countrymen. She relates no personal adventures, for none of these came in her way, and Portugal she describes as, in general, a quiet country, and very safe to travel in. On this point she remarks:The truth is, as I believe, that unless you lay yourself out for danger by some bravado, or some indiscretion of temper, or by neglect of such ordinary precautions as are customary and reasonable, you may, when the country is not overrun with civil warriors, travel in Portugal as securely, if not so smoothly, as you can navigate the Thames from Vauxhall to Richmond."

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The chief merit of the work, and it claims no higher, is its eloquent descriptions of scenery, and frequent illustrations of the generally amiable character of the Portuguese. The authoress and her party landed in May 1845, by the Queen steamer, from Southampton, at St. John's da Foz, a fashionable bathing village, about three miles from Oporto, where they resided till the following Novem

falling down the back and below the shoulders, rather
standing off from the shoulders, and upon this a round
beaver hat, of a shining jet black. The crown of the hat
was also round, with a little inclination to the sugar-loaf
shape the brim might be three inches wide.
The white
kerchief did not appear on the forehead, but came out
from under the hat, just behind the ears, leaving an un-
obstructed view of a pair of magnificent gold ear-rings;
depended as low as the waist.
the neck was encircled by massive gold chains, one of which

From the Foz, soon after their arrival, the authoress and a female friend, accompanied by two gentlemen, a Galician servant and a muleteer, set out on an equestrian tour of the province Entre Douro e Minho, the smallest, except Algarve, but the most fertile and most populous, and certainly the most interesting, province in Portugal. They had letters of introduction to various parties in their route, and were every where received, due allowance being made for the difference in national customs, with kindness and hospitality. At Barcellos-which the authoress describes as a fine old town, with a detestable inn, "like almost all the rest in the country"-one Senhor G

to whom they had a letter of introduction, sent them some half dozen bottles of champagne, and what they valued far higher, two bottles of Edinburgh ale, the latter of which was stowed away for future service, as "a juice far more precious in that latitude than champagne, or even than tokay." At Ponte de Lima they spent a day in the house of a Senhor M—, where they were well entertained, and where they heard the following characteristic anecdotes of Sir Charles Napier, "the old Commodore :"

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see in the House of Peers, the Duke of Palmella, the Conde de Villa Real, Fonseca de Magalhaens, Conde de Lavadio, Conde de Taipa, the Marquis of Fronteira, Costa Cabral-the then minister, expelled a few weeks afterwards, and a refugee at Madrid, thence to return, after his partisans should have worked up another reaction, to struggle up once more into the seat of power and pence, and to maintain himself there if he can. But it is clear, that such men as Cabral and his brother, though they may be competent "to disturb the peace of all the world," are far from qualified to rule it when "'tis wildest."

The reader is not so fortunate as to have any personal descriptions of those celebrated personages whom the au

thoress met in her tour.

* Admiral Napier (Don Pedro's admiral-the Nelson of his cause) lodged himself in this house in the course of his gallant vagaries as an amphibious warrior in the north of Portugal, after his exploit at Cape St. Vincent. Senhor Cgave a curious account of his bluntness of deportment to the astonished natives, Senhor C-called on him here. 'What do you want?' inquired the admiral. He was lounging on the sofa in the drawing-room, smoking a cigar; he was dressed in clothes once blue, now of no colour; and was altogether the most slovenly-looking of heroes.I called to pay my respects.' Will you write?'-'Whatever your Excellency pleases.' The admiral throws his cigar out of the window, takes a pinch of snuff, and reflects. Write then to the Juiz da Fora, he must feed all my men directly. Is that done?'-'Yes.'— Sketches of some of the distinSend it off then.'-A pinch of snuff. Write to such an authority of such and such a parish or village; he guished individuals, mentioned above, would have given must furnish three bullocks, &c. &c.;' and so he went additional interest to her book. At Cintra, among other on, taking pinches of snuff, and issuing his requisitions. objects of interest, she visited the Marialva Palace. The The abbot and principals of a neighbouring monastery waited on him in form. They were introduced, and ranged private apartments of the present royal family of Portuthemselves in semicircle, making their bows. The ad-gal, are thus described:miral on his sofa seemed in a brown study,' till reminded by some gentleman that these visitors were persons of distinction. What do they want?' They come to offer their compliments to your Excellency.'-He got up, inclined his head, and thanked them, Muito obrigado, muito obrigado-much obliged, much obliged-and bowed them out. His demeanour here was thought altogether rough and eccentric. I dare say he had neither leisure nor inclination to bandy compliments with Portuguese gentlemen and friars, the greater part of whom, he might well suspect, wished him and all Don Pedro's partisans at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. I give this report without offence, I trust, just as it was made to us by Senhor C and confirmed by several of Senhor M's friends. Senhor M- was absent at the time of Napier's foray; for he, too, had found it prudent to expatriate himself during the tyranny of Don Miguel, by whose government every man of substance and of local influence, who did not declare himself for the king absolute,' was treated as a foe and a traitor. Senhor Mtook refuge at Liverpool." There are some very interesting descriptions of landscape and forest scenery in this first portion of the "Journal," and especially of the striking and sublime mountains of Gêrez. At Braga, the authoress was much taken with the specimens of antiquity which abound in that town and the surrounding district; and she indulges in a learned and very interesting disquisition as to the Roman remains in Portugal, and the affinity that subsists between the Latin and Portuguese languages.

After a short stay at Oporto, the authoress proceeded to Lisbon, and the most remarkable" 'sights'' in and around that city are described with animation. Of the Cortes she thus writes :

"Yet another convent, per-verted, I have to speak of -that of San Bento-now the Cortes. The Commons' House is a fine room. The President's seat is in the centre of one side of the room; the members sit in front of him, on benches raised one above the other, and above them, or rather behind them, for they do not sit under the gallery, is a gallery all round for spectators-auditors more correctly. The room appropriated to the peers is small, and very common place; the only ornament a wretched portrait of the Queen, which hangs above the President's chair at the end of the room, under a crimson canopy. The members sit upon benches raised one above the other, just, in fact, as persons sit in pews, only without doors, as in a modern London church. I observed the bench appropriated to the bishops was the last, consequently the most elevated, though the furthest from the President. The gallery for strangers is immediately behind the bishops; the benches run across the room; they are divided in the middle. The opposition takes the left side the left of the President-our right, looking as we did from the other end. We were fortunate enough to

"We saw the private apartments of the king and queen, most simply furnished-chintz and muslin curtains; floors covered with Portuguese matting, very pretty; some few large and handsome china bowls, and other ornaments of this kind; and baskets and boxes of carved ivory from India, delicate in texture and workmanship. The apartments of the children modest and pretty, opening upon a charming old-fashioned French garden, whence you see the little town, the lofty Serra, the mighty ocean, and the soft undulating ground that lies between the rough rocks and the often rougher waters.

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The women of Portugal, according to this writer, are not remarkable for their beauty; in this respect, she thinks the women in the north excel those of the south.

"I have not seen," she says, "a pretty woman since we left St. Joao da Foz, and in figure and gait these Southerns are far inferior to their sisters of the North. Of their figure, to be sure, you cannot judge so well, as it is generally concealed by the long dull-brown cloak, which is universally worn by all who can afford to purA square white kerchief, tied under the chase a cloak. chin, the corner hanging down behind, is the only covering to the head. Those who do not possess cloaks, wear some shabby shawl, or cotton kerchief pinned over the shoulders. In Lisbon I observed a few of the long scarlet cloaks, trimmed and faced with a broad stripe of black velvet. In Collares I saw a man wearing a black hat, the crown of which was very high and sugar-loaf shaped; but the hats most generally worn have low, round, barberbasin-like crowns, ornamented round the top with tufts of black silk or worsted."

The authoress gives a glowing account of the amiable disposition and "tender-heartedness" of Donna Maria, and represents her as having no real power.

"Her sceptre may be likened to a living serpent, that may glide out of her hand any day, but not without having stung her. She is distracted by Proteus charters and ever-changing constitutions-by liberal ministers, who would govern her and her people with absolute sway, less, too, for the lust of power than the lust of filthy lucre-by an ill-armed, ill-paid, ill-conditioned soldiery, ever ready for riot at the call of the highest bidder, and military chiefs, who would all be Cæsars over Cæsar-by a discontented pauper people, who are tired of carrying on their shoulders the quacks and demagogues who have fooled them; a people who have trusted everybody till they will trust nobody. She is distracted between old friends and new friends, the new prevailing. Her husband, a Saxe-Coburg Gotha, is said to be no friend to England: his adviser, a German in the French interest, and his Portuguese creaturessome of them mouthy and red-hot patriots, as they call themselves, literary, philosophical, and political-are downright Afrancesados in their paltry rancour against Great Britain."

It is to Great Britain, however, that Donna Maria not only owes her throne, but the preservation of her throne; and her late conduct has shown her to be not quite entitled to the amiable character which the writer of this "Journal" has drawn of her.

The authoress visited Cadiz, Seville (where she witnessed, to her thorough disgust, a bull-fight), Gibraltar, Malaga, Granada, Carthagena, Valencia, and Barcelona, on her return to England; and of these places she has given a rapid en passant descriptive account. But we will not follow her into Spain. Her book is an interesting one, and will have its little day of popularity, to be shoved aside and forgotten as other and more recent tourists enter with their "Journals' on the scene, to be replaced by later travellers in their turn.

The Angler's Companion to the Rivers and Lochs of Scotland. By Thomas Tod Stoddart. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood and Sons, 1847.

▲ PLEASANT and right healthy recreation is angling. To stroll by mountain and valley, by loch and stream, with rod and tackle, line and bait; to hook the fish, and land the spoil on bank of river, rivulet, mill-pond, stream or streamlet; whether it be bold biting perch, active yet cautious dace, heavy and dull barbel, suspicious bream, ugly bull-head, long-lived and cunning carp, eager chub, gliding minnow, greedy grayling, tail-forked parr, voracious pike, reed-haunting tench, or finest of river fish, the beautiful, ever-lively, sport-affording trout; is exercise delightful to the frame, and exhilarating to the spirit; sufficient, as the first treatise on the subject ever published in England affirms, "to cause the helthe of your body, and specyally of your soul !" The gentle craft! Well named, and well entitled to the name. To it literature owes many delectable works-two in particular are renowned "in song and story." Of the first-the curious tract entitled the " Treatyse of Fyshinge wyth an Angle," published by Wynkin de Worde in 1496-Dame Juliana Berners, prioress of a nunnery near St. Albans, is said to have been the authoress. This lady seems to have been an enthusiastic admirer of the sport. "The angler," she says, "atte the leest, hath his holsom walke and mery at his case, a swete ayre of the swete sauoure of the meede floures that makyth him hungry; he hereth the melodyous armony of the fowlls, he seeth the yonge swannes, heerons, duckes, cotes, and many other fowles, with their brodes, whych me seemyth better than alle the noyse of houndys, the blastes of hornys, and the scrye of fowles, that hunters, fawkeners and foulers can make. And if angler take fysshe, surely thenne is there noo man merier than he is in his spyryte." Here is true poetry!" He seeth the yonge swannes,"-away in their mountain lakes amidst the everlasting hills, and "the heerons," "and many other fowles, with their brodes," such as men "in populous cities pent' have no chance of seeing, never in all their lives, unless they too go there to look for them. Falconry is now well nigh unknown in England; these railway times of ours are not favourable for hunting; "the sound of the bugle horn" is no longer heard cheerily, as of yore, on the greensward; and the game-laws have pretty nearly brought fowling to its doom. But ever fresh, and ever new, and ever perpetuated, is the fisher's art. Untouched by time, un-malisoned by custom, and unproscribed by statute, angling

flourishes "in immortal youth;" the amusement of high and low, and the passion of all who have devoted themselves to its mysteries.

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For the other book referred to, as renowned in English literature, need we mention the venerable work of Izaak Walton? Who has not heard of, who has not read, the Complete Angler ?—that inimitable discourse, which to all time will teach lessons of practical wisdom in the art of angling, well called by gentle Izaak the contemplative man's recreation." To clerical and secular, gentle and simple, rich and poor, young and old, high and low, the art recommends itself by so many natural claims, and so numerous are its pleasurable and health-inspiring influences, that we wonder not at its being a favourite pastime with our English and Scotch people of all classes, or that our national literature should contain so many interesting works on the subject. In both prose and verse angling is the theme of many an enthusiastic descant. On the excitement it creates, and the feelings it stirs within the breast, Mr. Stoddart, the author of the volume before us, writes eloquently ::

"Hence it is," he says, "from the very variety of emotions which successively occupy the mind, from their blendings and transitions, that angling derives its pleathoughtful and ideal temperament; hence, poets, sculpsures; hence, it holds precedence as a sport with men of tors, and philosophers-the sons and worshippers of genius, have entered, heart and hand, into its pursuit. Therefore it was, that Thomson, Burns, Scott, and Hogg, and in our present day, Wilson and Wordsworth exchanged grey-goose quill and the companionship of books, for the taper wand and the discourse, older than Homer's measures, of streams and cataracts. Therefore it was, that Paley left his meditative home, and Davy his tests and work-each and all to rejoice and renovate themselves; crucibles, and Chantrey his moulds, models, and chiselto gather new thoughts and energies, a fresh heart and vigorous hand, in the exercise of that pastime which is teeming with philosophy."

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Mr. Stoddart's "Scottish Angler," published in 1835, proved him to be well acquainted with the craft “in all its branches, as practised in the different rivers, streams and lochs of Scotland. His loch and river-side experience, since that period, has been very extensive; and he may now be considered a master in the art. To young sportsmen, his present volume, a goodly one of 430 pages, will be an invaluable Vade Mecum. By older ones, it will be esteemed as a right trusty and useful guide and companion. On all subjects connected with the preparation for the sport, that is, the providing the materiel for pursuing the recreation successfully, he lays down the best and most practical directions; giving descriptions of the tackle, bait, flies, &c., required, and furnishing an account of the fish usually angled for in the Scottish streams and lochs. In this, many inter esting notices in the natural history of the different fish, and particularly of the salmon tribe, are introduced. With respect to the use of worms, and especially of natural and artificial flies, the reader will find here some very useful suggestions. Mr. Stoddart is an authority on all such vital matters. But, in these points, every angler knows that the season, and the kind of flies common in the neighbourhood of the place fished, must greatly determine the choice of bait.

Everything relating to river trout, and the various methods of capturing them, was comprised in his former treatise; and so far as the contents of the present volume

are concerned, the views expressed throughout are the result of more enlarged information on all the subjects treated of. Mr. Stoddart has touched but briefly on the subject of trouting with the fly, as well as on the method of dressing fly-hooks; but on the practice of worm-fishing in clear waters, minnow and parr-tail spinning, the employment of the salmon-roe as a bait, &c., he has entered into circumstantial details.

As regards such equipments as horse-hair, castinglines, &c., the author gives some excellent advice. On this point the fishers of a past generation seem to have been more knowing than our present race of anglers, with whom silk-worm gut has come into pretty general use. The following passage, from its allusion to Sir Walter Scott, is worth extracting :

"Judging from the specimens that, from time to time, have come under my notice of the fishing tackle used by our forefathers, I am led to the opinion that there is no horsehair to be obtained in our modern days, which, in point of roundness, length, and power, at all approximates to what was employed by them. This is owing partly to the practice, now in vogue, of docking our stallions before the tail has had time to acquire its full strength, and partly, also, to the care and attention formerly exercised in the selection of the article. One of the finest specimens of good horse-hair I ever remember to have met with, was presented to me, along with a bait hook and some red hackles, by the late Mr. William Laidlaw, the friend and factor of Sir Walter Scott. This and its accompaniments were part and parcel of the identical fishing tackle discovered along with the mislaid MSS. of Waverley, and alluded to by Sir Walter, in the general preface to his novels. I make no doubt but, with the single hair in question, I could have managed, provided my rod was a pliant one, and my eel-line ran easily, a salmon of ten or twelve pounds in weight, not, indeed, in such water as the Trow Crags, or any of the rocky straiks and clippers that afford facilities for fish to cut or wear through the line, but in an open, unobstructed cast or pool, where the salmon could show no cunning, and, at the same time, exert its full strength and speed. The hair alluded to, I may mention, was white, clear, and long, not of the coarse, black description, which even now-a-days is common enough, and possesses, without question, strength to capture the largest of our river fish."

The National Cyclopædia. Vol. I. London: Charles
Knight, 1847.

As a book of reference this publication, when completed, must take a standard place. It is on the same plan as the "Penny Cyclopædia," though more comprehensive in its details, being, in fact, but another version of the same extensive work, its vast materials carefully condensed and revised; and its price, like its limits, judiciously abridged. In its present shape the utility of the work cannot fail to be at once recognised. Many of the articles in the "Penny Cyclopædia," the larger geographical ones particularly, are sadly deficient in arrangement and succinctness of information. In the "National Cyclopædia" the superintendence in these respects seems to have been more efficiently exercised, as there are fewer of such defects apparent. The larger work can only be purchased by the rich and by public libraries. The present, from its smaller price and less extent, will be found to be what it is designed for, of greater use to the greatest number, and as specially the book for the great body of the people. It will be the only real "Popular Encyclopædia," far superior in every respect, and far cheaper too, than the one that passes under that name. In natural history, biography, and geography, it is particularly rich, and in the more important articles the authorities are given. The publication is to be illustrated with many hundred wood cuts. The Crusaders; or, Scenes, Events, and Characters, from the Times of the Crusades. By Thomas Keightley. London Parker, 1847.

A NEW edition, in one volume, of a work which has already received the public approval, published under the direction of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge. It gives an interesting and well-arranged account of those romantic and extraordinary "episodes in history," set on foot by blind enthusiasm, and sustained by superstitious zeal, called by historians the Crusades, and comprises all the authentic information we possess relative to those memorable events, which make the annals of western Europe and of Palestine stand out so prominently

ing to be more a picture of manners than a regular narrative, the book, from the nature of the contents, and its attractive style, reads like a romance, having all the hues and colours of reality. Crusader, Greek, Turk, and Saracen pass before the reader, with all their national and individual, social and religious distinctions of character, and surely never was there a time when these were more marked, or exercised a greater influence on motive and conduct, as at the era of the holy war, waged on the Moslem by the soldiers of the Cross. The work concludes with the crusade headed by Philip Augustus and Richard Cœur de Lion.

To the general reader, the chapters on the angling in the history of the twelfth century. Although professstreams of Scotland will be very interesting, but by regular anglers they will be found invaluable. The choice of a stream is sometimes a matter of great moment to the fishers, from the kind of fish that inhabits it, and the greater or less prospect of sport it is likely to yield. The Tweed, as affording greater facilities for trout fishing, stands highest in Mr. Stoddart's estimation; but the claims of the Forth, the Tay, the Clyde, and their tributaries, with those of the different rivers in the North and North West of Scotland, are not overlooked. This account of the first class rivers in Scotland, is the more valuable, as it comprises all that relates to their salmon fishings in the way of produce, rental, &c.; taken from Letters on the Criminal Code. By a Barrister of Linstatistical sources, and enriched by quotations from authorities.

The work contains lists of the most approved flies for Scottish rivers, especially Tweed, with four neat sketches, and an illustrative map of Scotland. This is the high season for angling; and the name of Mr. Stoddart's book, flanked by his own name, will ensure it a welcome from the brethren of the gentle craft, and from all others just entering on its enjoyments.

coln's Inn. London: Stevens, 1847.

The substance of these letters, written in a vigorous style, appeared in the Spectator newspaper last year. They are chiefly directed to an examination of two of the proposed alterations on the Criminal Code, viz., the making a capacity to discern the law of the land the sole test of Criminal Insanity, and what the author calls "the almost complete suppression of the constitutional right of resistance to the exercise of unlawful authority." On

these points, especially the first, he lays down some very | which only extends to 141 pages, comprises the statutes sound maxims; and his observations on the whole subject of the English Code of Criminal Law will be found very interesting and useful to all who may turn their attention to its amendment.

The Foundation Statutes of Merton College, Oxford;
with the subsequent Ordinances. From the Latin.
Edited by Edward France Percival, M. A., of Brasenose
College, Oxford. London: Pickering, 1847.

and charters of foundation, with the subsequent ordinances of Archbishops Peckham, Chichely, and Laud, from the original Latin. The introduction contains a succint aecount of the early history of Merton College, with a review of the state of education at the university at that period. Merton is celebrated as being the place where Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus, the latter the most emi nent scholastic philosopher of his age, taught philosophy and rhetoric; and where the first reformer, John Wycliffe, was educated. Among its more eminent members were Bishops Jewell and Hooper, Sir Thomas Bodley, and Sir Henry Saville. A neat lithotint view of Merton College forms the frontispiece of the volume, which, to all Oxford men, and especially to those educated at Merton, will have an especial value. As a collection of ancient academic laws, it will be found to possess an interest even to

MERTON COLLEGE, the oldest permanently endowed foundation for the maintenance and education of scholars in Oxford, unconnected with the monastic orders, was founded in 1264, and became the model of all the other societies of that description. Its founder, Walter De Merton, was Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of England in the thirteenth century; and the present volume, I persons unconnected with either.

POLITICAL REGISTER.

THE present Parliament will be dissolved during | Canton river-captured forts-spiked nearly nine the month, and the election of representatives for hundred cannon-earned a new installment of probably the next five years will occur on the pre- glory-and lost not one man. This was war almost sent registration. We do not recollect of any gen- on the principles of the Peace Society. eral election that promised to display less party spirit. There is no vitality in any party, and the constituencies will not quarrel over the ashes of factions whose vitality is burnt out. This circumstance may not, however, be favourable in any shape to the promotion of necessary reforms, and the practical advancement of the nation. The repeal of the cornlaw has intoxicated a large section of the population with a feeling of their own power and security. Famine and dearth of employment, of wages and of food, have infected another portion. There hangs over all a weariness with politics. This, therefore, is the period which an able minister, and unscrupulous, would select to retrograde. And we have been retrograding.

The Church stands more firmly in her position now than at any time since 1829. While we write, an act to make four new bishops is passing rapidly through the dying parliament; though the railway reform measure is cast aside by the physicians, who say for the patient that being in articulo mortis such temporalities must give place to spiritual business.

The duty of electors in providing for the future involves a looking at the past. We have had a foolish intervention in Portuguese affairs, undertaken to establish peace in that country, by suppressing the party that we acknowledge to have been right. This is the Palmerstonian theory of justice. The electors should take care that it do not become British practice.

Our last letters and papers from India describe the most providential escape that the country has recently experienced from a disgraceful act. We had a war of forty-eight hours' duration with the Chinese, Our forces fought their way up the

The cause of quarrel is hardly known. Some Chinese porters probably insulted or overcharged the English merchants. Angry language, a mob, and a "row" ensued. Such things are not less common in Canton than Wapping. A report was despatched to the Commander of our forces. A correspondence ensued with the Chinese authorities. It was unsatisfactory; and, therefore, the two glorious days followed. Without the official statements more cannot be said of the matter. To the fighting, therefore, we do not at present object. It would appear to have been harmless to the last degree. It seems even to have been war with a pacific tendency, confined to the destruction of belligerent implements. But the papers reveal an intention of the most desperate character. The submission of the Chinese officer came in time to save the bombardment of Canton ; but in no more than time. The preparations were made. The tools were ready. The gunners seem to have been standing, matches in hand, when the reprieve arrived that saved a town with nearly one million people from bombardment.

We have reason to be thankful for this deliver ance from one of the darkest stains that could have been inflicted on the honour of our nation and the character of our arms. Such limited Christianity as we have credit for in the East, was well nigh destroyed by the zeal of the commander on that station to burn slay and bombard. He was under no irritation. He had not lost a man. He had captured famous forts. He had spiked cannon innumerable. He must have administered a full dose of retribution for all the harm that had occured. He had no captives to extricate from Canton. He had no bloodshed to revenge. He had no great danger to avert.

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