exactly the door open, but a surly door-keeper to push them back, and if they do get in, no seat in church. In addition to the odious Annuity Tax, the rents of the pews in Edinburgh are, on the average, three times higher than in any other Scottish city. Thus we pay for our 66 great prizes" trebly; and, in their diligence and fidelity as ministers; in their meekness, forbearance, long-suffering, patience, gentleness, as Christains, have our reward.

We dare not inflict upon our English or Irish readers more about our Collegiate Charges; our royal chaplainships; our union of the pastoral office with the professorships in our university; our church jobs of all kinds. We have not complained till now: NOW COMPLAINT IS REDRESS.

IMPRISONMENT OF A BAPTIST.-As this sheet was going to press, we have seen the spectacle, novel in a Presbyterian country, of a respectable and aged man of the religious persuasion of Fuller, Robert Hall, and John Foster, haled to prison for ministers' stipend, under circumstances which shame the very name of Presbyterianism. Mr. Ewart, shoemaker, one among upwards of three hundred citizens put to the horn, (at least a two-guinea process before it is ended,) when presented with the caption by the messenger, said he was quite unable to pay his arrears. He was indulged with a little time to go and plead his case with the scion of Establishment, Dr. Inglis's son, who is reaping the fruits of a lawyer's rich harvest, amid our tears, shame, and sorrow. He told that young agent of the clergy, that he neither could, nor would, if he could, pay stipend. He belonged to a denomination of Christians who had been tortured and burned by an established priesthood; and the Established Clergy of Edinburgh were welcome to send him to prison if it seemed good to them. On the same evening, (Friday 23d,) he was marched off to the Calton Jail, accompanied by the usual hasty muster of people carrying flags and poles, having placards on which were a variety of devices and inscriptions, to which we shall not at present advert. His daughter, a fine young woman, in a fit of heroic indignation which overmastered her grief and the natural timidity of her sex, seized one of the flags, and would have walked before her father to prison with the crowd, but was prevented by him and the interference of the humane bystanders. Next day this ruined man's shop, in Hanover Street, was seen shut up, and a bill stuck on the door," IN PRISON FOR MINISTERS' STIPEND."

In earnestly recommending Mr. Ewart's case to the friends of freedom of conscience everywhere, and particularly to the Baptists of England, we would humbly ask the casuists among our clergy, Is this man imprisoned to recover a just debt, or to gratify a cruel, despicable revenge? We know what men of plain understanding, in this city, think and say loudly.

By the laws of Scotland, a creditor who indulges his cruelty by keeping a needy man in jail, is bound to maintain him. Mr. Ewart has claimed, and been allowed a shilling, paid per diem, as aliment-money-a liberal allowance,—as fortunately the fixing the amount of aliment does not rest with the imprisoning clergy.

Every clergyman should have 1.400 in each pocket," said the Whig SolicitorGeneral, the other day at some Kirk meeting, where the Magistrates themselves were speaking of uncollegiating the churches, and reducing the stipends. Some twenty or thirty years back, those stipends were L.300 a-year, with as much more as they could scrape up. Be it remembered, that the faculty to which Mr. Cockburn belongs, have never yet paid one farthing of church-tax since the Kirk was established; and as Presbyterian sm is neither the fashionable religion, nor even the genteel mode of faith in Edinburgh, it is but a proportion of the learned faculty that even pay for a seat in the Kirk. Speeches like the above move the multitudes in the Cowgate, and even the wealthiest shopkeeper in the finest streets, in rather an unpleasant way. Mr. Cockburn connot have forgotten the anecdote of King James I. and his Bishops, Neale and Andrews. "Cannot I take my subject's money when I want it, without all this formality in Parliament ?"—“God forbid, Sir,” said Neale, "but you should-you are the breath of our nostrils."-" Well, my Lord," rejoined his Majesty to Andrews, "and what say you?" He excused himself on the ground of ignorance in Parliamentary matters. "No put-offs, my Lord," said James, answer me presently."" Then, Sir," said the excellent prelate, "I think it lawful for you to take my brother Neale's money, for he offers it." The clergy are fully entitled to take Mr. Cockburn's L.800 a-year.

TAIT'S COMMOMPLACE-BOOK,

THE DUCHESSE DE BERRI.-Society, that most abject of trimmers, has always possessed a double-sided code of political morality. We see no cause for exultation in the frailty of this errant Duchess. The cause of the Carlists is anything but bright enough to be injured by so small a speck as the infamy of the Duchesse de Berri. The deposed King of France has nothing to lose or to gain from the virtue of his niece; a woman sufficiently ill-spoken of by her own partisans, even during her most high and palmy state of supremacy at the Tulieries ;-—a rash, frivolous, and unprincipled princess, thrust by circumstances into the position of a heroine. The antiquated Countesses of the Faubourg St. Germain, who vehemently resent the supposititious marriage, hired by Madame de Camla, at the expense of 1100,000 francs, to "make an honest woman" of the Margaret of Anjou of the Henriquinquistes, affix far too much importance to the mishap of royal adventures. Within a few years it will be admitted, that a government, motable by such trivial agents, must, indeed, be grounded on a sorry foundation. What must be the blindness of mankind, when the licentiousness of an ungovernable woman has power to operate upon the happiness of thirty millions of her fellow-creatures!'

men,

POLICY V. MERCY.-There is a plain straight-forwardness of action in Lord Althorp, which everybody admires, friend or foe. He is totally divested of the wily eel-backed hypocrisy of the courtier of former times; and wears his heart upon his sleeve, for daws to peck at—and great numbers do. How much better is this than the policy of great his predecessors in office. Then, an act or an assertion was food for all the politicians in town or country for a fortnight; and thousands of acute intellects were put upon the stretch in wondering what he was after now. With the present most noble Chancellor of the Exchequer, all is as plain as a pike-staff. Look at the Ten-hours Labour Bill, which poor Ashley has been fuming away upon for days and weeks together, with all the energy of a twenty-philanthropist power,the whole population of the country at his back. Farmer Althorp gets up "in his place," and, with all the charity, humanity, and kindheartedness, for which he is famed, swears he will defeat his object, and knock his Bill on the head entirely. People stare with astonishment; but there is nothing to stare at. A paragraph in the next day's paper announces (without the slightest reference to this subject) that there happen to be between forty and fifty mill-owners in the Lower House. Now this number of honourable factory folk would fearfully swell a minority; and Althorp shrewdly enough suspects that, by forsaking the men of cotton, he might stand the chance of only getting worsted byand-by. There can be no mistake in this.

PATIENCE UNDER A HEAVY BURDEN." If the people of England and Scotland remain as quiet under their burdens in future, as they have been this Session, I fear we shall get rid of but few of the taxes which now press on the industry of the people." So says that resolute friend of the people, Mr. Hume, in a letter printed in the Fife Herald of 26th August. For a Session, the people of Scotland have been quiet; but it has not been the quiet of indifference, far less of content, that has possessed their minds. The proceedings of this Session have been remarked with

a gradually increasing indignation, that will soon show itself in every part of Scotland.

Would that Scotland had many representatives like Joseph Hume, and many journals like the Fife Herald!

SCOTTISH JOBS.-We are asked to animadvert on two recent appointments in Scotland :-One, the presentation of Mr. Ewen, a political partisan of Captain Elliot, to the Church of Hobkirk, "in opposition," as is said, "to the wishes of every individual in the parish!" The other, the renewal of a sinecure in King's College, Aberdeen, by the appointment of Mr. Patrick Davidson to the chair of Civil Law, of which there are no students at that College, and not the slightest chance of there ever being any.

This last has all the appearance of being one of those scandalous jobs which belonged to the regular order of things in Scotland in times past, but of which we hoped we had seen the end. Our Magazine, however, being intended for the United Kingdom, we have no space for local jobs, unless they be of great magnitude.

NEGRO SLAVERY.-With the following admirable letter of that eminently gifted politician, philanthropist, and Christian, Mr. Douglas of Cavers, we take leave of the question of negro emancipation. The leaders of the Anti-Slavery Societies have shown themselves bad shepherds. Had they acted like the far-seeing politician whose letter we record, the country would have seen the injustice and absurdity of the Ministerial scheme of emancipation, and have aroused itself to prevent the scheme from being adopted. But these leaders have been blind or asleep. In their joy at the prospect of emancipation in seven years, they have overlooked the injustice of continuing slavery so long, and the impracticable nature of the Ministerial scheme. Mr. Douglas is quite correct. The thing will not work. There would have been no danger in immediate emancipation; but there is imminent danger in this absurd scheme. We acknowledge, with gratitude, the value of the past zealous services to the cause of justice and humanity, of Mr. Fowell Buxton; and regret that he has shown at last that his penetration is by no means on a par with his zeal. We doubt his integrity no more than we believe in his talents. In the House of Commons he declared himself willing to vote for not only the twenty millions of compensation, (the new and genteel substitute for that ugly word, bribery,) to the planters, but for forty millions, if necessary to procure negro emancipation. What a total want of perception of the true nature of what he is talking about does this show! If Mr. Buxton would make himself acquainted with our system of taxation, and learn how much of the two millions of annual interest of the forty millions would fall upon the industrious classes, and how little upon the wealthy class to which he himself belongs, he would have hesitated before voting for such an addition to our yearly burdens; and if his understanding could grasp such an abstract and difficult question as the justice of throwing our own debts upon posterity, he would have paused before adding forty millions more to the National Debt. But we must leave Mr. Buxton to consider these things, and give the letter of a man not less worthy, and infinitely more able. To the Petitioners for the Abolition of Slavery.

GENTLEMEN, The Ministry, after many delays, have at last produced a plan for the abolition of Slavery, which they, with a strange ignorance of the condition of slaves, and of the mind of the public, term safe and satisfactory.

How satisfactory it is, will soon be shown by the reprobation of the whole coun

try; and the safety which it is likely to confer, will be much on a par with the satisfaction.

Instead of abolishing slavery, this miserable scheme tends to perpetuate it. It does away with the name; but not the thing. It still leaves the labourer to work three-fourths of the day, or week, without wages; and removes the cart-whip from the hands of the overseer, without substituting any other immediate inducement to exertion in its place.

Pain or profit are the only inducements to labour. The apprentices of our sagacious Ministry are to act without a motive. They are to derive no profit from toiling under a tropical sun; and yet the driver is no longer to urge them on with the lash. They must either work from disinterested affection to a Ministry which has merely changed the name of slave into that of apprentice; or Britain herself,—and this appears to be the ultimate design of Ministers,-must become the slave-drivergeneral of the Colonies, and take the cartwhip, instead of the sceptre, into her own imperial hands.

A scheme of such inherent absurdity must necessarily and deservedly fail. It is contrary to common sense and common justice,-to the almost universal feelings of the country, and to your own late petitions, signed by numbers beyond any former example.

The Ministry in this case have alike disregarded the voice of the country, and the dictates of humanity. But, once more place your signatures in equal, or, if possible, in superior numbers, to petitions; and they must perceive, at last, that neither can be disregarded with impunity.-Your very obedient servant,

JAMES DOUGLAS.

LITERARY REGISTER.

THE CAMBRIDGE QUARTERLY REVIEW AND MAGAZINE, No. I. for July. THIS is the only recent instance we recollect, of the starting of a new Journal of Whig principles. To support the present government, is the evident purpose of this Review, so far as it is to be a political Journal. The Cambridge Quarterly will find that it has undertaken no easy task. It will be rather difficult, we opine, to say much for the doings of the Whigs; and it will be difficult to raise a Quarterly Journal into high circulation, through the influence of the Whig party. The juste milieu is fast disappearing. It is an unnatural party. There cannot long be three political parties in a state. As men get warmly interested in politics, they are impelled to take their place in one of the vehement extremes. Only the feeble, the timid, and the ignorant, will, ere long, be found in the ranks of the middle or Whig party.

We find in the leading article of this Journal, the usual Whig commonplaces very well put together. As a literary work, we shall speak of the Cambridge Quarterly in our next. There must be many men of talent connected with Cambridge, and, in duty to their Alma Mater, bound to support her periodical. We wish our new brother honester politics and great success.

PEDESTRIAN TOURS IN SWITZERLAND, with a Sketch of its History and of the Manners and Customs. By L. Agassiz, Esq., late of the Royal Navy. 8vo. Smith, Elder, & Co.: London.

WHEN will authors have done with their prefaces, deprecatory or apologetic, for bad style? They mistake the case. If they really have anything to say, no fear but they will find suitable words. The author commences his journal from the moment he lands at Calais. Striding over France, and skipping the entire history of Switzerland, we get on

with him very pleasantly in his rambles through the Swiss valleys, diverging in all directions from his head-quarters at Lausane. A pedestrian has many opportunities of noting manners denied to the vehicular traveller. Mr. Agassiz stept into cottages, and conversed with peasants, and made the best use of his time. We learn one new fact from his account of Copet,-the Neckers were of Irish extraction-Madame de Staël but a few removes from a wild Irish girl.

THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST: a Practical Treatise on the Cultivation and Management of various Productions suited to Tropical Climates. By GEORGE R. PORTER. 8vo. London: Smith, Elder, & Co.

WHATEVER tends to ensure the successful employment of additional capital, or the introduction of better modes of management of colonial produce, must be a benefit alike to the parent state, and to local cultivators. Many articles of commerce, indigenous to tropical climates, are uncultivated in a great number of the English colonies; and the main object of the author, by supplying information that may induce those colonial agriculturists who confine their labour and capital to the almost exclusive culture of one or two particular kinds, to grow a wider range of substances, and, by rendering the market less glutted in one species, to make room for others which must secure a demand, is to secure a great good as well to individual speculators as to the public generally.

The obvious advantage which would result to planters by diminishing the growth of sugar for instance-so as to bring the supply within the real and effective demand, and cultivating other among the many descriptions of produce for which the soil is equally well fitted, forms scarcely the subject of contemplation among growers in some of the English colonies. Mr. Porter's design, therefore, by entering into the history of many of the important articles of commerce in demandtheir nature, properties, and peculiarities-their growth-the soil best adapted for them-the various and the best processes to be employed in their manufacture--is to afford to the colonial agriculturist a body of information so extensive and so valuable, that he may make his capital available beneficially to himself and others, to a far greater degree than it may latterly have been.

Although the "Tropical Agriculturist" may be considered as the future text-book of the planter upon all matters relating to colonial produce, it is full of interesting detail and pleasant reading. Mr. Porter is well known as the author of a most valuable treatise on the sugar cane; and, conjoined to his present labours, the two at once determine the very eminent position to which he is entitled, as a scientific and practical man, on the very important subjects he has applied his mind to.

Wood-cuts, neatly executed, from apparently very faithful sketches, illustrate the volume.

BUCKINGHAM'S PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW, and Family Magazine.

We are pleased to hear that this honest and able journal is meeting in England with the encouragement it deserves. It discloses much of the trickery of our reformed House of Commons, not to be found in the newspaper reports. We heartily recommend the work to all political unions and clubs of reformers. It is published weekly, and being unstamped, must be procured through the publisher's weekly parcels.