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wild, devastating revolutions and submission to tyranny, that dries up all the sources of life and strength? No, emphatically no; that is a false conclusion. Those aspirations are the instinctive voice of nature guiding individuals to good. They will not be, and they rarely are, when entertained within reasonable limits, disappointed. Individuals achieve much of what they aspire after as individuals-fortune, fame, power-but the aspirations of each one can never be the aspirations of any other, and can never become the rule for the whole. The past improvements of society have been the result of the improvements of individuals. As society gets rich by their separate labour, not by the regulations of government, so it grows in knowledge and civilization by the same means. The exertions of each leads to the social progress of all, and the full developement of each is social perfection. Social greatness, and social happiness, can only be reached by removing restraints on individuals. We may hope much from observation, and from the due application of intellect to the investigation of the social phenomena,-much from a confidence in nature, and from a distrust of individual wisdom, to regulate and govern that society of which it knows not the beginning nor the end, and only knows darkly and imperfectly a little of the present; but we can hope nothing from the action of government. Hope springs eternal,' and the most enlarged and accurate knowledge, can only change its direction.

Our remarks tend, in this respect, to be negatively, not positively, beneficial. We have attempted to remove two errors that prop up a false system, we have added nothing to the one broad basis on which alone a true system can be founded. It has been said sneeringly, that the French have gained nothing by their revolution, substituting General Cavaignac and a dictatorship for Louis Philippe and his sordid tyranny. In a merely positive sense that is true. But France, with all Europe, has been taught by the failure, the nothingness of political and constitutional systems. Men are beginning to be convinced, that safety is not to be sought, nor found, in republican, any more than in monarchical forms of government. Society cannot be saved by blustering demagogues, or theoretical professors, any more than by rapacious monarchs. New principles must be learned, and systems, not merely names, must be changed. Something like that which the great French revolution has practically done for Europe, we may hope, though in an infinitely less degree, to have done for political science. We have, perhaps, removed an error, and have cleared the ground for others to establish the truth.

In pursuing our own train of thought we have lost sight of

Mr. Morier. His work has similar defects to those of the political economists. He assumes some existing evils, or customs, to be ultimate laws. For him, the basis of all authority is public opinion in its favour. Practically, and in fact, he is right; opinion must, on the whole, at all times have been in favour of every existing government, and opinion, therefore, has been frequently or even generally erroneous. Government, as we have already said, employs means to bias the opinions of the press. Church establishments, with large revenues to be enjoyed only by those who profess a particular creed, are standing bribes to embrace and propound certain opinions which are recommended to acceptance, not by their truth, but by the worldly advantages they bring. Still larger revenues, appropriated to support an opinion favourable to monarchy, tend more forcibly to the same end. No person, as the rule, is admitted to serve the State, or share its revenues, who entertains republican or still more extreme opinions; while the ministers, and those who fill high places, are bound by an oath, as well as their salaries, to preserve the monarchy. All these parties act on a foregone conclusion, and for ever bend their minds to conceive and grasp a prescribed opinion.

The proper basis for opinions, is the impressions which the material world makes on the senses, and those which are pleasurable are readily cherished. As the last resort, all men appeal to facts as the test of all truth. Political opinions are tried by the same test. But when opinion is made a pleasure by enormous bribes, men strive to take a particular view of facts. Interest and passion are enlisted on the side of the large revenue. Thus, even the government that rests on opinion in the freest country of Europe, may not rest on facts, and may be in danger, as we believe it is, from resting only on a bought and bribed opinion which facts are every day contradicting. The great error, and the great fault consequently, of Mr. Morier's book, is, that all its doctrines rest on such an opinion; and beyond that, and beyond the system that buys and bribes, his work affords us no clue to social improvement. The sum of it may be stated to be, 'rest contented with the form of government which opinion approves of,'-' obey and honour the institutions which opinion sanctions;' but the present condition of society indicates the erroneousness of prevalent opinions, and the faultiness of existing institutions. We are now required to look beyond opinion, and examine its origin,-to look into the book of nature, and the laws of the material world, of which society is a part, in order to find the means of reconciling the conflicting claims of different classes, and of rescuing society from the chaos with which it is threatened.

The connection which Mr. Morier traces between religion and politics is, the connection between Thou shalt not steal,' and the right of property now and heretofore sanctioned by opinion; he assumes the opinion to be right, but supplies no proofs of its goodness and justice. Not going beyond the opinion of the governing classes, his work throws no light on the social problems of the day. He enforces the eighth commandment, he is eloquent in favour of charity and love, he justly advocates a spiritual religion, and inculcates with fervour the best principles of Christianity, which improve, refine, and exalt individuals, without explaining how either statesmanship, or religion, can now frame, with any chance of success, the policy of governments towards their subjects, or their policy towards one another.

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ART. VI. The Autobiography of a Working Man. By One who has Whistled at the Plough.' London: Charles Gilpin, 5, Bishopsgate Street Without.

1848.

THE 'working man who has whistled at the plough' is Alexander Somerville, the soldier in the Scots Greys, who was flogged during the Reform Bill struggle, for writing a political letter in the Weekly Dispatch.' One of the impressions which his first manifestations to the public made, was, that he was a man whom it would be worth while to know thoroughly. But, except the one bold fact that he was a private, who had made it known that he would not fight for the boroughmongers, nothing came out clearly and distinctly characteristic of him, at a time when a paragraph about him was worth gold to the newspapers. Seventeen years elapse, and here he is in a good, thick volume, telling us himself the story of his life, and a very interesting story it is, and very ably and graphically told. If his unique position among the private soldiers of the British army excited a general desire to know more of him, this volume gratifies the desire partly, and yet leaves the reader, as the event did, desirous to know more. There are, indeed, such materials of interest in this man and in his life, that we feel sure his volume is one of the few books of the season, of which it will not be convenient for intelligent persons for many a day to say, they have not read it.' Moreover, the book is admirably adapted to the time, being full of the subjects universally interesting just now,-

chartism, free-trade, parliamentary reform, conspiracy, agitation, and, in short, the conflict between the people and the oligarchy.

We beg to thank Mr. Somerville for the picture he has drawn of the fireside of his father. The worth and beauty of the domestic life of the dissenting and evangelical peasantry of Scotland, is a theme capable of the most artistic treatment. Burns has placed one scene of this life-The Cotter's Saturday Night'-upon an immortal canvass. Professor John Wilson has portrayed a few features of it, with great delicacy and loveliness. There is a homely truthfulness about the delineations of Mr. Somerville, which make them well worthy of the study of those who would understand the scenes from which old Scotia's great

ness rose.

The Somervilles occupied a small farm among the Ochill hills, in the middle of Scotland, called Nether-aichlin-sky. When a young man, the father of Mr. Somerville was a carter, in Alloa, on the Firth of Forth. But his horse Dick dying, the carter became a labourer at a lime work, along with his brother William. An accident made him change this employment to that of a farm labourer. William was so strong, that he could carry three bolls of barley, each boll filling a large sack-one boll by a rope round the sack, in each hand, and another in his teeth. On account of his strength, William was selected to trim the lime in the holds of the vessels, and the dust and the fumes killed him.

Near the village of Ayton, in Berwickshire, a pretty village, the farm labourer became in love with a maid-servant in a farm-house, a young, blooming woman. Her name was Orkney, and she had a female ancestor reputed as a witch. People, to this day, in Ayton, justify unusual sayings and doings, by alleging her authority-as old Eppy Orkney said,'' as old Eppy Orkney did.' Mr. Somerville confesses to some veneration for this ancestress, justly deeming the imputation of witchcraft a proof of ill-appreciated superiority of intellect and energy. Fame is fame, though only of witchcraft, just, as Byron has observed, 'a book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.'

The scion of the house of Somerville, and the daughter of the house of Orkney, began housekeeping with a good stock of furniture. But the condition of the hovels provided for their class at this period, in the south of Scotland, may be inferred from the circumstance, that none of them had windows. The frugal pair had a small window consisting of one pane of glass, which they carried with them from hovel to hovel. One of these hovels was at Billy Mill, near a witch-haunted bog,

memorable for having nearly swallowed up David Hume the historian, who was a native of Ninewells, in the neighbourhood. Hume missed his footing in the mire, and sticking fast, called for assistance, and was at last heard by some people, who ran to give help. Seeing, however, that it was Hume' the unbeliever,' they turned back from the amiable philosopher, remarking, 'Na, na, the deil has him, let the deil keep him.' Mr. Somerville mentions, that Hume got out of the bog, and wrote his history afterwards, but does not relate the means by which the philosopher and historian escaped an absorption of his body, analogous of the absorption his mind had undergone in metaphysical mire. The deil' would have had him both ways, the story goes, but for a compassionate milkmaid, who helped him out, after compelling him to say the Lord's prayer, as a proof that he was a true Christian.

The father and mother of Mr. Somerville were what were called anti-burghers, otherwise 'Auld Light Seceders,' the strictest and sternest of Scottish sects, adhering rigidly to the confession of faith, the standards' and the traditions and customs of the Covenanters. In the spring of 1811, Alexander, the eleventh and last child of this couple, was born, when a great dearth made the price of corn six pounds five shillings per quarter. His father earned fifteen shillings a week, as a mason's labourer or barrowman, and had in the following year to pay the miller twenty pounds for barley and beans to make bread. This was a memorable circumstance in the history of a mason's labourer, with a family consisting of a wife and eleven children, and an income of fifteen shillings a week. The barrowman, when rain came on, and others went to the publichouse, always found something to do at the works. He boasted that he had not spent forty shillings on drink for forty years.' He indulged himself with a smoke once a week, every Sunday, while one of the family read a sermon, and he chewed a little tobacco, saying, 'It cheers my old heart, and helps me to get through the hard labour.' Work never prevented family worship, morning or evening. The coldest storm that ever blew did not keep him from the meeting house on a sabbath, though five or ten miles off. At 'winter suppers,' at 'kirnes,' he was a merry man, anecdotical, jocular, and vocal, telling droll stories, and singing lively songs. Saturday night being often the time occupied with these merry-makings, no consideration, no hilarious sympathy, no submission to persuasion, nor trick of putting back the clock, could induce the pious antiburgher to keep up the festivity by himself or his family, after ten o'clock. He must have family worship over, and all in bed, by twelve o'clock. Such was this Scottish barrowman in Ber

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