country has to desire. We shall now, I hope, for a very long period indeed, enjoy this blessing, and cultivate a situation of prosperity, unexampled in our history."

And still more important, under the date of November 7th, 1792 (“mind dates," says Mr. Cobden), Lord Grenville writes confidentially to his brother :

"All my ambition is, that at some time hereafter, when I am freed from all active concern in such a scene as this is, I may have the inexpressible satisfaction of being able to look back upon it, and to tell myself that I have contriouted to keep my own country, at least, a little longer from sharing in all the evils of every sort that surround us."

That is plain enough, and emphatic; but let Mr. Cobden mark what follows, and digest the hint about "raising wages":

"I am more and more convinced that this can only be done by keeping wholly and entirely aloof, and by watching much at home, but doing very little indeed; endeavouring to nurse up in the country a real determination to stand by the constitution when it is attacked, as it infallibly will be, if these things go on; and above all, trying to make the condition of the lower orders amongst us as good as can be made. To this view I have seen with the greatest satisfaction the steps taken in various parts of the country for increasing wages," &c. &c.

In the face of such decisive testimony, it would be useless to appeal to further evidence against the wild and ignorant

assertions of Mr. Cobden, about the English ministers of 1792, being "the authors of the war." Lord Grenville uses the phrases, "If these things are suffered to go on ;" and as Mr. Cobden is ignorant of the transactions of these days, we will, for his advantage, elucidate that passage, by informing him that it refers to those seditious sympathisers with anarchy and revolution, who attempted to debauch from their loyalty the masses of England by their" Corresponding Society," "Revolution Society," "Society for Constitutional Information," and other mischievous leagues, baptised with mild appellations. "Boys!" cried an Irish rebel chief, "when ye grasp the pikes, be sure to say you want no more than amelioration." Mr. Thomas Paine, a great lover of peace and true religion, was then foremost amongst the popular misleaders; but Mr. Cobden, in his review of these times, never mentions even his name, and would fain have the reader forget Mr. Paine's projects and appeals to the democrats. We had intended to have exposed in detail the utter ignorance of the affairs of 1792, shown by Mr. Cobden, but we need not do so. We have preferred to do justice to the memory of our illustrious countryman, Burke, by vindicating his "Reflections" from the aspersions of his "sharp and shallow" assailant, by collecting the testimonies even of Whigs and Liberals to the permanently abiding va lue of the greatest masterpiece of political philosophy to be found in literature.

THE revival of nature in Spring is one of those rare phenomena of the exterior world, which never presents itself to our observation or imagination, without perpetually renewing feelings of wonder and delight. Nothing can state the infinite variety of its attractions-not even the changes in our own mental and physical organisation, which so materially affect most other things. The wonderful terrestrial and celestial phenomena that occur every day of our lives the rising and the setting of the sun, so astonishing for their regu larity and importance, the ebb and flow of the tides, and the perpetuallysupplying and never-exhausted abundance of the rivers, fail to awaken those sensible feelings of enjoyment and gratitude which the conception or the realisation of Spring produces. No age, no sex, no condition of life, is insensible to the approach of this beautiful season, or disappointed when it arrives. To the child emerging out of babyhood, it promises the paradise of the meadow or the lawn; and the only floral games which yet survive in the world, from which, by the aid of a few bunches of buttercups and daisies, innocence and health, and the quick fancy of young life, can extract more enjoy ment, than at a later period could be derived from all the roses of the East. To the boy, and to the girl too, it unfolds in prospect the wider world of the fields, and the winding green roads of the remoter country, which are longed for with an eagerness which seems prophetic of that stronger impulse, which, in a few years later, will send them forth to the still more extensive regions of active life. To the lover of nature VOL. XLI.NO. CCXLIV.

itself, it presents the beautiful object of his affections, in the most charming period of her existence, arrayed in all the freshness and the purity of youth; while, to the practical naturalist, it unfolds the minuter phenomena of her existence, which, hived up in such delightful books as that of White's "Selborne," shed such a delicious savour of the country around the winter's fire. Need we speak of the prospect of freedom and vigour which it holds out to the feeble and the invalid, and the hope of exchanging the monotony of the sick room for the infinite variety of the hill-side, the valley, or the shore? It is the longed-for studio of the artistthe silent academe of the student-the trysting-time of the lover-the chosen school for meditation-and the most abundant source of inspiration to the poet, and of instruction, as well as of illustration, to the moralist. It is thus that the sacred books of the Old Testament, written by men who, in an immeasurably high degree, united in their own persons the grave vocation of the teacher, and the melodious organisation of the minstrel, abound with such exquisite and touching allusions to the outward beauty of this season, and the inward lessons which it in culcates. Take, for instance, the celebrated mystical and allegorical invitation in the second chapter of the Song of Solomon, which, as it were, contains within itself the essence of all that has ever been said or sung upon the same subject, and which, by the transcendant beauty of its language and allusions, shares in the perpetual welcome which the season it so exquisitely describes receives, and makes the descrip

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