ADDRESS TO HOPE. By MASON CHAMBERLIN. 'Tis thine, when every earthly comfort fails, Pointing to mansions fair above the skies Where undisturb'd tranquillity prevails, A crown of joy, which shall for ever bloom; Where pain shall cease, and tears be If, rightly taught, by each afflictive stroke, June 6, 1816. REMARKS FROM VARIOUS CORRESPONDENTS. A FRIEND TO ACCURACY informs "A Constant though young Reader," (see page 253 of the present Volume,) that he may find the Account of William Walker, of Darnal near Sheffield, which he wishes to see, in Gent. Mag. vol. XXXVII. (1767.) p. 548-9. A Correspondent expresses his fears that the remarker on Eccles. Hist. (p. 323, 397, &c.) is no friend. He certainly, "skilled," or not skilled, is an ample dealer in legendary lore." If he continues to sail at large, not "with supreme dominion, in the desert fields of air," our Correspondent hopes, Mr. Urban will clip his wings, and save others the unwelcome trouble. Verbum sat. The intelligence from Rugby (p. 442) is not quite correct. For "Joseph M. Hamilton," read "Joseph Harriman Hamilton." Omit "H. Rogers;" and for R. Churton," read, "Thomas Townson Churton and William Ralph Churton." "The lines on Browne Willis (p. 446) may be seen in the Oxford Sausage, p. 158, but without a name. I suppose your Correspondent has some ground for "attributing" them to "Richard, Lord Viscount Cobham." In the third stanza "Spenser" should, no doubt, be "Chaucer," as it is in the Sausage. In stanza 1,"County town," for "Country town," and stanza 7, "Stript" for "Stept," are variations, of which perhaps the reader will prefer the former." C. "Your Correspondent, p. 496, justly reprobates Boxing matches, offensive to 6 the public peace, and disgraceful to those "In compliance with the wish of Mr. P. 511. 1. ult. The excellent Historian of Selborne was not "Vicar," but grandson of a former Vicar of both his names, who was instituted in 1681. See History of Selborne, p. 330. "All your Correspondents must hope that your Leicestershire Friend is not near the end of his Tour. "They have also to thank J.W. (p. 524.) for the account of Mr. Johnson; and to hope he will give you many more particulars of one so well deserving of public notice, and which he appears so well qualified to give.” A. Z. PREFACE ΤΟ VOL. LXXXVII. PART I, AFTER having for Eighty-seven Years addressed our numerous Readers with a repetition of Thanks for their long-continued and unpa ralleled indulgence;-after referring them more particularly to our Prefaces for the last Thirty Years, in which our firm attachment to the best interests of our Country, our veneration for its Sovereign, and our respect for its equitable Laws, have uniformly been inculcated—we have only again to thank the many friendly Correspondents who contribute so liberally to support the credit of a Miscellany which has been honoured by the productions of men as justly famed for their virtues as for their talents. We cannot, however, close the present Address without sincerely congratulating the Country at large on the revival of Trade and Publie Confidence. And this we shall do, in the words of a respectable Provincial Newspaper*; which, after enumerating several facts, demonstrating that our Commerce and Manufactures are evidently fast improving, thus spiritedly remonstrates with the Croakers: "The renewal of the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act has been decided upon by the Legislature; and the measure has again been agreed to by as large majorities, in both Houses of Parliament, as it received on its first enactment; and we apprehend also with the approbation of a majority still larger of the reflecting and considerate part of the Nation. We have not yet seen one single argument advanced (though we have heard declamation and assertion enough) which shews that it is an act for the personal advantage or benefit of the Ministers. But we have heard from Ministers themselves, from such men as the Lord Chancellor, and the Earl of Liverpool, and from Statesmen in opposition likewise, from Lord Grenville in the Upper House, and from Mr. Bankes, Mr. Elliot, and Mr. Wilberforce, in the Lower House, that the measure in question was a grand National question, and is truly justified on the grounds of National necessity. As such, all good subjects will for a time submit to a wound of such severe infliction on the Constitution. But the Constitution of a State like ours is like the individuality of a man. It subsists through numerous subordinate changes. It grows from youth to age. It may improve, or it may decay, or decay may be produced under the name of improvement. Of all Constitutions now existing, ours is at once the most antient, has been the most slow in growth, and is the best knit and compacted together; but all its parts and principles do not require to be kept in motion at once. Some are capable of being suspended for a time; and their suspension may even contribute to the preservation of the general system. We had a Constitution before the, Habeas Corpus Act existed; we retain it now that that Act is in abeyance; and we shall possess it when the Law is again put in force. It was, therefore, well said by Sir John Nicholl, in the course of the debate on this Bill, that the Habeas Corpus Act is a Law by whose operation the people are secured from the oppressions of Power; and by whose occasional suspen Felix Farley's Bristol Journal. sion the Crown is enabled to secure the peaceable and loyal part of the people against the machinations of the seditious and traitorous.' "The Funds, that certain criterion of public confidence and credit, are rising every day, s - so that a person who bought into the Funda before the meeting of Parliament, before it was known what measures Ministers would adopt for the security of the subject, and ere the financial arrangements of the year were made public, has gained more than 20 per cent. on the money invested. Let us trace, therefore, a few of the consequences of such an occurrence; and see how they bear on the great question of public prosperity. The wretches who spread sedition and treason throughout the country build all their hopes of success in their detestable projects, on the distress of the labouring classes. That distress is of course produced by want of employment. The want of employment originates in the withdrawing of capital from circulation. Every rise in the value of funded property is an additional temptation to throw it into circulation; but here is a rise of 20 per cent. Capital must therefore rapidly flow into all the channels of circulation. Credit must revive. The small farmer, whose capital has been exhausted, whose credit is nearly at an end, and who therefore has fallen behind-hand in his rent, discharged his labourers, and impoverished his fields, will now recover his credit, will be able to revive the productive powers of the land, will take the starving labourer again into employ, and eventually, by the payment of his rent, will induce his landlord, who may have emigrated to the Continent for retrenchment, to return, and live in his usual comfort and respectability at home. Hence, the home-market for manufactures must at every step grow better; and the manufacturing poor, who have become the dupes of incendiaries and traitors, must begin to see through and detest their delusions, and bless the Legislature for those wise, patriotic, and constitutional measures, which have saved the country from impoverishment, desolation, and massacre. Reverse the picture, and consider what would have been the consequence, had the Habeas Corpus Act not been suspended. Funded property would have become daily more insecure, and of course daily less valuable. Capital would have been more cautiously locked up. Credit would have vanished. Employment, both in agriculture and manufactures, would have become more rare; distress more intense, the temptations to insurrection more powerful, the efforts of the seditious writers and speechifiers more audacious, the plots and conspiracies more extensive, more consistent, more tremendous! In this down-hill course toward revolution and ruin, nothing could have stopped us but measures of the utmost energy, measures infinitely more remote than the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus is from constitutional liberty — nothing, in short, but martial law and military force, the lamentable but indispensable means of putting down open and systematic rebellion. But if, to the happy prospects we have first anticipated, Providence in its bounty, as there is every appearance of its doing, should add the blessing of a plentiful harvest; if our emigrant gentry should listen to the voice of duty and of prudence, and return to the land which they have shamefully quitted in the moment of distress; if a general feeling of indignation should overwhelm the seditious and blas phemous libellers with disgrace; and if the Government, armed with temporary powers, should employ them to the complete extirpation of Conspiracy and Treason, we may yet indulge the hope of seeing our glorious and beloved Country as great in Peace as it has been in War-an example to Nations for its enlightened patriotism, its steady considerate loyalty, its morals, its greatness, and its freedom." LONDON GAZETTE Brit. Press-Day 1 Pilot-Statesman Courier-Globe |