SHEPHERD. They hae gotten their general orders-and a' the leaders ken weel hoo to carry them intil effeck. The phalanx is no' breakin' into pieces noo, like cumstrary cluds-ae speerit inspires and directs a' its muvements, and it is deploying, Mr Tickler, round yon great hie-kirk-looking rocks, intil a wide level place that's a perfect circle, and which ye wha hae been here the best pairt o' a week, I'se warrant, ken naething aboot; for Natur', I think, maun hae made it for hersell; and such is the power o' its beauty, that sittin' there aften in youth, hae I clean forgotten that there was ony ither warld. REGISTRAR. "Shaded with branching palm, the sign of Peace." SHEPHERD. Aye, mony o' them are carrying the boughs of trees-and its wonderfu' to see how leafy they are so early in the season. But Spring, prophetic o' North's visit, has festooned the woods. Not boughs and branches only TICKLER. SHEPHERD. But likewise furms. There's no a few mechanics amang them, sir, housecarpenters and the like, and seats 'll be sune raised a' round and round, and in an hour or less you'll see sic a congregation as you saw never afore, a' sittin' in an amphitheatre-and aneath a hanging rock a platform-and on the platform a throne wi' its regal chair-and in the chair wha but Christopher North-and on his head a crown o' Flowers-for lang as he has been King o' Scotland-this-this is his Coronation-Day, Hearken to the bawn! REGISTRAR. I fear it will soon be growing dark. SHEPHERD. Growin' dark! O you sumph. This is no the day that will grow dark -and though this bold bricht day luves owre dearly the timid dim gloaming no to welcome her to sic a scene-and though the timid dim gloaming has promised to let come stealin' in by and by her sister, the cloud-haired and star-eyed Nicht, yet the ane will gang na awa' as the ither is making her appearance for day is in love wi' baith o' them, and baith are in love wi day-sae 'twill be beautifu' to see them a' three thegither by the licht o' the a perfect chrysolite"-and the sky abune, and the glen aneath, and the hills between them a', will be felt to be but ae Earth! moon (END OF ACT FIRST.) Printed by Ballantyne and Company, Paul's Work, Edinburgh THE CHURCH AND ITS ENEMIES. LETTER FROM A LIBERAL WHIG, GREGORY HIPKINS, ESQUIRE, SURNAMED THE UNLUCKY, EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, 45, GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH ; AND T. CADELL, strand, London. To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed. SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH. To be published by Subscription, in Three Volumes, post octavo, The Work will contain, in the Biographical part, an account of the origin and circumstances attending the conception and publication of the Author's separate productions, with various Literary Anecdotes. The Miscellanies will consist of Tales in the Scottish, English, and American dialects, with Essays on different subjects; also, various Schemes and Suggestions for Public Improvements, and Poems composed since the incis position of the Author; together with a History of the Seven Years' War, somewhat similar in design to Schiller's Sketch of the Thirty Years' War. The Work will be sent to press whenever a sufficient number of Subscribers is obtained. Subscribers' Names received by Mr BLACKWOOD, Edinburgh, and Messrs LONGMAN and Co., London. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCXXIII. JUNE, 1834. VOL. XXXV. PRESENT STATE OF PARTIES. NOTHING can be more remarkable, or fraught with more important political instruction, than the present state of this country, and the aspect of parties in the middle of the second session of the Reformed Parliament. If any person will take the trouble to consider the temper of the public mind, and the language of the popular leaders, at that period, and compare it with what he now sees around him, he will hardly conceive it possible that he is living in the same age of the world; and still less comprehend the causes which, in so short a time, have led to so violent a transition, and converted the impassioned supporters of popular power at that period, into the violent enemies of democratic pretensions in this. If the language of public men, and the objects of party ambition, have changed, how much more has the public effervescence diminished, and how immeasurably different are the prosfrom what pects of the country now, they were at that disastrous epoch! Much matter of consolation is to be found in the retrospect-much instruction as to the progress of political change in a free state-much light as to the quarter from which alone, in a crisis such as we are undergoing, ultimate salvation is to be obtained. It is now just two years since the VOL, XXXV, NO. CCXXIII, Reform Bill was virtually thrown out 3 M der the scaffold; a run with infernal activity kept upon the Bank, which in three days brought society, in this vast commercial state, to the verge of dissolution; and vast assemblages of organized men convened in the great manufacturing towns, for the avowed purpose of overawing both the Crown and the hereditary branch of the Legislature. All this was done amidst tumults of applause from the public press-the Whig leaders and the popular meetings, the whole nation resounded with revolutionary projects-menacing language was in every liberal mouth-Government itself was at the head of the movement-Bristol burned for three days, as a sample of what commercial opulence had to expect from popular fury-the sack of Nottingham Castle warned the Aristocracy of the fate which awaited them-the whole foundations of society appeared to be torn up, and England about to be delivered over to the whirlwind of anarchy, which had so recently laid waste the neighbouring kingdom, and consigned the accumulations of ages, the institutions of centuries, to one common ruin. Two years have passed away, and what are the prospects of a country then, to all human foresight, on the borders of a convulsion fraught with unexampled horrors to all classes? That the danger is over, no one will assert; that the seeds of ultimate destruction are not sown, no wise man will affirm; but that the progress of dissolution has hitherto been much slower than was anticipated, or than the progress of the French Revolution gave us reason to expect, is now abundantly proved by experience. The great institutions of society, though seriously menaced, still exist; the Church is hitherto untouched, and its enemies, despairing of success in open hostility, have reverted to the insidious project of undermining it, by sowing the seeds of discord in its protecting Universities; the Funds, the Corn Laws, the right of Primogeniture, the House of Peers, are threatened in deed, but not overthrown; and the Radical body in the Legislature, how formidably soever increased by the Reform Bill, can as yet be kept in subjection by a cordial union of the two other great parties in the State. It is no small matter, that two sessions of Parliament have been nearly got over-the two sessions likely to be the most perilous, from the heated state of the public mind when it first assembled, and the extravagant expectations which were afloat as to the unlimited blessings which were to descend upon society from the Reform Bill-without any of the great institutions of society having been overthrown, or any farther important change having been made in the constitution than the immense one which that Bill effected. It is no small matter, that the fierce collision of parties has exhausted itself, without blood having been shed, or property confiscated; those cruel and irrevocable measures, which so often render the progress of disaster irreparable, by mixing up private revenge with public passion. It is no small matter, that while the progress of conflagration in Great Britain has been so slow, the downward progress of the Revolution of the Barricades has been so rapid, that the fumes of Republican enthusiasm, by which so many of the strongest heads in Britain were then swept away, have been drowned in blood, and the downfall of the mild and constitutional sway of the Restoration followed by a military despotism so oppressive, and a prostration of freedom so complete, that even faction can allege nothing in its defence, but the necessity of extirpating the very principles on which itself is founded. All this is in the highest degree consolatory; and if it does not afford reason as yet to conclude that the seeds of ultimate ruin were not sown by the Revolution of 1832, it at least demonstrates, that the strength of the patient is resolutely grappling with the disease, and gives ground for the hope, that Great Britain may yet surmount the crisis, and evince, in a green old age, the vigour of the constitution which had so long survived so dreadful a malady. But if the slow progress hitherto made in revolutionary measures, and the vigour of the resistance opposed by the Conservative party to their progress, affords subject for consolation, how much greater is the comfort to be derived from the altered temper of the public mind, and the cooled language which even the ad |