LITERARY REGISTER. really cheap and reasonable at £42,000 per annum, or less than one shilling per week each-although when they get into prison they require nearly £30 a-year, and juvenile thieves cost £300, whether per annum or per vitam is not said. The following sentences immediately precede the quotation:-"In London one man in every nine belongs to the criminal class." "According to the reports, there were in London 143,000 vagrants admitted in one year into the casual wards of the workhouse." Presuming that the "casual wards" resembled those city casualities visited by the present Lord Mayor, we cannot say that the 143,000 vagrants were by good quarters tempted to repeat their visits. Nevertheless, we have no doubt that the 143,000 vagrants are made up by each vagrant repeating himself or herself very many times; and that 143,000 visitations of probably 1,430 persons are turned into 143,000 separate vagrants. The assertion that one man in nine belongs to the criminal class is monstrously unjust. After all the figures that are packed in these early pages, the error should have been visible to any arithmetician. It occurs on page 8. Well, at page 2 we are told that there were 2,362,236 persons in Loudon, of whom 1,106,558 were males. They are divided into Of the 670,380 unmarried males, 146,449 were under five years, who could not be expected reasonably to be married; or, we may add, to be criminals. Deducting that number from the aggregate of the male sex, 960,109 remain, of whom every ninth person belongs to the criminal class, or in all 106,678 individuals. Perhaps, including prostitutes, the females are no better; but, being more numerous, London would possess a population of 220,000 criminals over five years of age. How are such blunders committed, and why do they come to be quoted in the London newspapers without correction? Mr. Mayhew has produced a mass of what he calls facts, regarding low life in London; but we are not bound to believe in his calculations. Thus, 10 Mr. Ritchie writes:-"We have, ac at page The author reproaches third rate literary men who frequent clubs for discussion in public houses, and they are not likely to advance their views materially in that description of places; yet it is un 815 necessary to sneer at third rate men, who may become first rate in course of years-certainly not in course of drinking. "The number of families living in one room is estimated as high as 150,000." The meaning of the sentence may be gathered out of the words, but a third rate literary man would call it unintelligible. "Look at that girl all radiant with beauty and smiles,-beautiful even in spite of her long lost virtue, and life of sin." Virtue, absent or present, would not make the girl ugly. She might have been beautiful in spite of her long acquired vice. We have no desire to quote sentences of this kind, and should not have taken the trouble of copying one of them, except as a sort of revenge for "the third and fourth rate literary men," who, the author fears, are the "most braggart, lying, and needy under heaven," and we are very sorry to hear that character of them. For Mr. Ritchie adopts and advocates the temperance principle, and we cordially agree with his remarks on that subject. He describes a number of places of an infamous character, in colours no deeper than nature, yet red as scarlet. He censures Chambers' Journal for bestowing laudation on the arrangements of Highbury Barn and grounds, and we do not clearly see the reason for our sober and staid contemporary's interest in the matter. dancing, dashing "ne'er-do-wells," it is all very bad, but, of course, for moral people it is worse. We do not allege that such grounds are always frequented by immoral persons. We have been there, and have still a tin token, given in exchange for sixpence on entrance, and currency within for sixpence worth of refreshments, which we did not require. The hour was late. The grounds were good enongh, but one third-to be charitable -one third of the company were no better than they should be, if not worse, and the atmosphere was ruined by fumes of gin and tobacco. It did not seem, in our half-hour's visit, one of those places likely to make the world better. A great difference exists between gas and sunlight, and “ Chambers' Journalist," wiser than ourselves, may have adopted a more becoming hour for his visit than we selected. Mr. Ritchie is, we fear, one of those persons who imagine that advanced politics and sincere religion are somehow natural enemies. According to the views that we hold, this is a grave mistake. Why should this author hold forth in the following strong words against the Finsbury radicals ?— Come here in the summer time, and the attendance is then numerous, and on a Sunday evening, on the lawn before the Barn, or in the bowers and alcoves by its side, what vows have the leaders palpably become shams, have the people | more addicted to the social crimes of society than woke up to disappointment and despair; and yet the naother people-in order that the publication may tion has yet to learn that it is only by individual righteousness its salvation can be wrought. The dancing instead of realise his good intentions. speech-making is a sign of the times. Accompanied as it is by less drinking, let us hope it is a favourable sign. Let us judge in the spirit of charity and hope. But let us not be too sangine;-it was during the terrors of the French Di rectory, When the streets ran so red with the blood of the dead, That they looked like the waves of hell, that Paris became a city of dancers, and that the art reached a climax unknown before or since. What right has the author to assume that the not very elegant expression "beery" applies to the Chartists, or the Finsbury radicals, or to their demagogues? Where are they who, at a former period, heard, and where are they who spoke Finsbury politics? Many are in their graves. The living are employed as they were employed before in the advocacy of what they consider right, as far as they have opportunity, and supporting their views with their votes at elections, when they are required. Nobody thought of proposing a caudidate of any but radical opinions for Finsbury in March last; and yet Islington is the largest district of Finsbury; and of London, in another place, Mr. Ritchie writes: London is several cities rolled up into one. If we walk along Regent-street, it is a city of gorgeous shops-if you turn into the West, of parks and palaces-if you traverse St. Giles's, of gin and dirt-again, in Belgravia, it is rich and grand-in Pimlico, it is poor and pretentious-in Russell-square, it is well-to-do-in Islington, it is plain and pious; and, strange as it may seem, the people are equally localised. Islington, in our opinion, towards the north, is the finest portion of London in scenery, and her Majesty resides in Pimlico, we believe in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, but these matters have nothing to do with our quotation. If a Con servative or a mere Whig could have succeeded in Finsbury, last March was the time, when three radicals contended for one seat-since Mr. Duncombe's was perfectly secure-and it is not wise to designate "the plain, pious people of Islington" as "beery," although many of them are Chartists or Radicals. The interior of the nurseries of vice in London and elsewhere need exposition. The world requires to know its own evils before a systematic effort can be made for their removal. In that work, however, we must not exaggerate, or write as if, because "a judge and jury abomination," and "The Cave of Harmony" may have between them three hundred visitors nightly, therefore the male population of London patronise these corruptions. The drinking habits of that, and of all other large towns, form the prominent bars to general happiness and prosperity. We do not understand how any political reformer in earnest can close his eyes to their pernicious influences, and therefore each exposure of their extent is useful. The author of this volume should amend its statistics, and recollect that Radicals are not My Battle in Life. The Autobiography of a THIS amusing and interesting volume is profusely In these capacities, beginning at Westminster, he went into London, thence to Bristol, to Dublin, to Liverpool, to Preston, to other places in Lancashire, to Hull, Newcastle, Glasgow, Melbourne in England, and Ipswich. His ministra tions were in the Swedenborgian church, whose members apparently study economy. At Hull, Mr. Goyder expected to be passing rich with an endowment of forty pounds a year, but the chapel trustees would only allow it to commence when the debt was paid. While prosecuting the work of the ministry in the Swedenborgian church, he added thereunto the duties of medical adviser and dispenser, having studied for that business also. During the 600 pages, we have anecdotes and characteristics of half as many different persons, and they are all told with great good nature, implicit faith in phrenology, and the doctrines of Swedenborg. ragraph in the book, except a description of an The following seems the worst-natured paAberdeen minister, nearly and not quite a Swedenborgian : The family of the Martins have been celebrated for their eccentricities-I think the more correct term would be very high order, but they were all obviously insane on some insanity; in one or two instances they displayed talents of a points. The painter's name will live as long as art flourishes, and yet he, too, was insane on some points. Jonathan Martin, who set fire to York Minster, in 1829, gistrate, who committed him for trial, he was asked if he had was obviously insane. After being interrogated by the raa anything to say? and he replied, in a firm tone of voice,— "The reason I set fire to the cathedral was on account of two particular dreams. In the first dream, I dreamed that a man stood by me with a bow and a sheath of arrows. He shot an arrow, and the arrow struck the minster door. I then wished to shoot, and the man presented me with a bow, and I took an arrow from the sheath, and shot, and it struck on a stone, and I lost it. In the second dream, I dreamed that a cloud came down on the cathedral, and came over to the house where I slept, and it made the whole house tremble. Then I woke, and I thought it was the hand of God pointed out that I was to set fire to the cathedral; and those things which were found on me I took lest any one should be blamed wrongfully. I cut the hangings from the throne, or cathedra, or whatever you call it, and tore down the curtains." William Martin, the person who called on me, was known in Newcastle as an exceedingly ingenious mechanic. From the time of my purchasing the ticket for his anteNewtonian lecture, he frequently visited me. He always designated himself "the Natural Philosopher and anteNewtonian," and the public journalists gave him these titles, taking care, however, to italicise the word natural before philosopher, the point of which poor Martin seemed incapable of apprehending, for he always stood much upon the respect paid him by the conductors of the press. William Martin was a rather handsome and well-built man. There was nothing repulsive in his external appearance. His head was small, and presented many inequalities on its surface; in every sense of the word his cranium was peculiar. The vertex of the head was amazingly high, and his self-esteem was enormous-indeed, obviously diseased. Towards the lateral parts of the forehead, there was a prominence which attracted universal observation, and which was so striking as to amount almost to deformity. It was a protuberance in the form of a segment of a sphere developed immediately above, but somewhat behind, the external angle of the eye-that is, in phrenological language, behind the organ of music, and just above the organ of number. This is the part assigned by phrenologists as the seat of the talent for construction. This autobiography divested of its peculiarities of opinion, would be a capital lesson upon the contentment that an active man may enjoy, and the work that he may do, without riches and often almost without the means of subsistence. Still that is no good reason why the labourer should be deprived of his hire. And we trust that the sale of this amusing volume may contribute more to the comfort of its author in his old age than many of his public services have done. Ashburn: a Tale. By AURA. London: Saunders and Ottley. 1 vol. pp. 335. THIS is one of the strong-minded books of the day, containing the history of a courtship certainly, but one of a very extraordinary, and, so far as we remember, an out of the way character, with broad streaks of goodness in it, and nothing bad, only eccentric. The course of true love leads us into company with many strange, and some very excellent, persons. Then we get their opinions on authors and subjects, as we would in a good newspaper, but more artistically wrought up, with lectures on doctrines, and reasonings on theology, all tending, so far as we comprehend them, in the right direction. The young people are not, however, like the young persons we knew; and even at the close they are very scrupulous on the question of marriage, from the dread respectively of not being good enough for each other. We do not recollect a love story, if we may employ that vulgarism to describe a book of large claims on many subjects, wrought out in the style adopted by "Aura." It is a novelty, and the execution disparages not the idea. We have in a few pages criticisms on Henry Martyn and Goethe -on Macaulay, Dickens, and Shakspeare, followed by dissertations upon man's depravity, and other subjects styled abstruse, for no reason but because people will not consider them, and reasoned out after the manner in which the army as a profession is defended in the following passage :— "But to kill a man who has done you no harm ust the same as murder." Mr. Somers turned to Jemima, and said, "Do you agree with your little niece in that view ?" "I must confess that that is very much how I view it. But, indeed, Mr. Somers, I am not able to argue with you: I don't think I could convince you." "But perhaps I could convince you," he replied, smiling. "I assure you it would be an act on which I should highly congratulate myself, if I would bring you to feel, as I would have you feel, towards those noble fellows, who need all the sympathy as well as all the admiration we can afford them, and not to be classed with murderers ?" "Of course no one accuses them, poor men, of wishing deliberately to commit murder. They are only misled." "You excuse them because they know no better; but you think it is pretty much a case of murder. To me it appears very different. I consider righteous war, maintained against outward invasion, as analagous to the forcible maintenance of internal order, and that we have the same right, and are, indeed, as much bound to repel the enemy without, as to repress the evil doer within. What does the Scripture say of the civil magistrate? That he is the minister of God, a revenge to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.' Now the soldier appears to me to be as truly a representative of the executive power of the state without, as the magistrate within." "But does it not make a great difference, that the magistrate punishes a really guilty man, whereas, in war, one innocent being is set to attack another ?" "Perhaps that might be set in a clearer light by an illuslearn from an undoubted source of information that some tration drawn from private life. Let us suppose that I burglars have formed a plan for robbing my house, what ought I to do ?" "You should lay your information before the police, and so prevent the crime." that I am living in an uncivilised country, it is clear I must "Certainly; but now suppose that there are no police, rely on myself and my servants. I must bolt and bar my house; I must not let the robbers catch me asleep. When they come I may parley with them, try to dissuade them, try to frighten them; but if, after all this, they persist in breaking in, and I fire on them, and kill one of them, am I to blame ?" "No; you could not help it; it would be a necessary evil." "An evil, too, which perhaps prevents a greater. This man's death may strike terror into his companions, and break up the gang. On the other hand, were they allowed to plunder with impunity, they would soon get recruits from the ranks of the idle, but hitherto honest, and they might, ere long, to robbery add murder, for these crimes commonly go together. That life forfeited may have saved the neighbourhood from a great deal of crime." "That is quite possible." "No." “And if my servants are in honour bound to defend me, I am equally bound to defend them, and any of my dependants, whether living in my house or out of it. You will also allow, that if the burglars were openly to proclaim their intention of attacking me or mine, I should not be bound to await their onset, but might very properly endea vour to prevent it by seizing them in their den. Moreover, should they, learning my intentions, prefer remaining within their fastnesses, and sending on their part representatives in the shape of armed servants to attack me and my retainers, might I not seek to repel these in return, as justifiably as I should those who employ them ?" "I suppose you might." "Well, call me and the robbers opposed sovereigns or governments, and the armed servants on both sides soldiers, and you have a miniature of war, with the same principles involved. There may be no previous personal injury, nor any personal enmity on the part of those actually engaged in the warfare; and, therefore, as regards their mutual relations they may be called innocent persons; and yet we see they may be brought by necessity into a hostile position towards each other." "Well,” said Jemima, "your illustration of war certainly gives a less cruel picture of it than that which, I must confess, it has usually presented to my mind, as simply an arena for all the evil passions of mankind." "Not very different from a cock-fight, I suppose, on a grand scale." want those inuendoes that abounded at or near the higher classes, and they leave the pleasant imtheir supposed dates in the songs current among pression on the mind, that the morality of the English labourer and yeoman two centuries ago was much in advance of the court and court circles of that time. Mr. Bell states that Mr. Swindells, of Manchester, supplied him with an ancient printed copy of the song known as "Old Adam," and Mr. Effingham Wilson, of London, language is pure strong English of the present gave him certain corrections from memory. The day, and we almost suspect Mr. Wilson of aiding it only a very little. The following two verses, cut from the middle, might be brought into use She was not took out of his head, Sir, The man is the top of the tree. The same song often found its way to widely different localities. An old Scotch song "Jockey to the Bair," seems to have been lately appropriated by Notes and Queries, on account of Gloucestershire. Mr. Bell puts in a claim for Westmoreland, but he says it is common in other districts, adding" From the Christian names of the lovers, it might be supposed to be of Scotch, or Border," gin; but Jockey to the Fair' is not confined to the North; indeed, it is much better known and more frequently sung in the South and West." This softens the claim of Notes and Queries very much, and "Queries "had better make a "Note" of his companion if he often finds him guilty of this kind of appropriation. The song is very well known in the East of Scotland where Jockey and Jenny are not Gloucestershire minced names. It might be more difficult to put Westmoreland out of court. Ancient Poems, and Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry. Edited by ROBERT BELL. London: J. W. Parker and Sons. 1 vol. pp. 252. THE present volume is the best of the series published under Mr. Bell's editorship; because the ballads, poems, and songs are more numerous than in the other volumes. We do not say that poetry takes value by brevity; but the preservation of the songs and verses common among the old peasantry is more necessary than a new edition One or two hundred years since, the ballads of of poems already perhaps well known, or the col- the country were used as political instructors. lected works of any single writer. Many of They were the press of these days. The printer these songs-the great majority indeed-are by could be caught and fined; but it was more diffinameless writers; and even the provincial di-cult to catch the ballad-singer, and especially the alect employed in some of them, especially those of west country origin, impart to them a special interest now. The tone of these songs, common among the old English peasantry, is healthy. They ballad writer. To each of the ballads and songs Mr. Bell has attached notes, explanatory or illustrative; and the work of editing, in this instanəs, is far from being merely nominal. OBITUARY NOTICES. MR. JOHN MACGREGOR. THIS gentleman, who recently represented Glasgow in Parliament, but retired before the dissolution of the last House, expired at Boulogne on the 23rd ult. Mr. MacGregor was born at Stornoway in 1797, and had reached his sixtieth year. Part of his youth was passed in Canada, and the British North American provinces; and his first published work was a statement of their commercial and other resources, in which we think that he devoted more attention to the States than to the British provinces. He subsequently produced other works on the same and kindred subjects. The information contained in these works is voluminous, OBITUARY NOTICES. bat not well arranged, and they bulk, therefore, largely; yet they were, and still are, useful contributions on transAtlantic subjects. Mr. MacGregor was subsequently engaged in business at Liverpool with success; and he was afterwards employed to collect commercial information on the continent, in which he acquitted himself so well, that he received the appointment of Secretary to the Board of Trade, with a salary of £1,500 per annum. He was undoubtedly useful both to Sir Robert Peel and others, in assisting to draw out the new tariffs adopted from 1842 to 1847. His evidence before the Committee on Customs duties iwas of great importance, and had no inconsiderable weight In the promotion of measures which have long since become aw and rule. In 1847 he looked higher than his seat at the Board of Trade, became a candidate for the representation of Glasgow; and, after a severe contest, carried that town, along with Mr. Hastie, also its late member. He was compelled to resign his secretaryship at the Board of Trade-which may be etiquette, yet seems to be a hard measure. For ten years, therefore, Mr. MacGregor has been a member of Parliament, and a director of public companies. He was for some years governor of the Royal British Bank; and in that capacity he was chargeable with a share of the gross 'mismanagement now in process of exposure. Mr. MacGregor insisted that the Bank, or its manager, held securities for all his debts; but he was never examined; and, as the manager is not in the country, it is impossible now, perhaps, to settle that point. The debt stands, and the securities have not been found valuable. He became connected with a number of other companies, few of which have been successful; but since his election for Glasgow, he has not continued those statistical publications which brought him into notice originally. He was not adapted for the House of Commons in any respect, except in the zeal with which he amassed facts, although many worse speakers get forward in that assembly; but the leaders of his party decided to overlook him, because they thought he claimed the merit too openly for his services at the Board of Trade, which they would rather have had ascribed to their own industry. Mr. MacGregor's commercial and statistical works extend to an almost incredible number of pages, although unfortu. nately for himself, their circulation was confined to a class. Some journals have recently stated that Mr. MacGregor was, during the present year a contributor to this Magazine. Three or four years since he did contribute certain articles of a commercial and statistical character to the Magazine; but only for a short period, and they have ceased for at least the time we have stated. He suffered towards the close of his life from acute disease, increased by recent events. VISCOUNTESS KEITH. DIED at her residence, 110, Piccadilly, London, on the 31st Mach, Hester Maria Viscountess Keith, in the 93rd year of her age. Such was the short obituary notice of one of the most remarkable of lately living characters, whose death, and that of the poet Rogers, sever the last remaining connection between the present generation and the great literary phalanx of the last century. It requires but a small calculation to trace the short period which really elapses between historical personages and existing beings; as, for example, Sir Charles Napier, whose name is familiar to every reader, was intimately related to the great grandson of Charles the First, and even this is not a very remote consanguinity to many living at the present day. But it is a striking fact, that the lady whose death we notice, was the intimate companion, not in her childhood but in her youth, of Johnson, Boswell, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Burke, Gibbon, Garrick, and a whole host whose names do and will live in literature, but whose deaths occurred long before the memory of most of the present generation, even of aged persons. Lady Keith was born in 1761-2, shortly after the marriage 319 of George the Third and Queen Charlotte, and consequently, before the birth of George the Fourth, his brother William, or her present Majesty, and brings us almost into personal contact with the change consequent upon the death of the second George, and the family disputes between him and the Prince of Wales, and could have almost brought within her own recollection, by the stories of elder associates, Queen Caroline, and the scene between her Majesty, Jeannie Deans, and the Duke of Argyle, so forcibly depicted in the "Heart of Mid-Lothian." She was the eldest daughter of Mr. Henry Thrale, the founder of the brewery now so well known as Barclay, Perkins, and Co.'s, and of Hester Salusbury, the heiress of an ancient family in Wales. Mr. Thrale resided for many years in a house adjoining the brewery in Parkstreet, Southwark, on the opposite side of the road to which we remember to have been a large garden, carefully kept, but which was gradually encroached upon for the erection of store houses, as the business of the brewery increased, but which was not entirely destroyed until the dwelling-house on the west side was seriously damaged by fire, and the space occupied by an enlargement of the general building. The exact site of the house may readily be seen by the new buildings from which the grains are now delivered, and the extent of the garden may be traced, from a small alley on the south, to the ancient red brick mansion still standing at the corner of Clink-street, the side windows of which participated in the view. Here, and at Mr. Thrale's, at Streatham, "the club" were accustomed to meet, and with the members of which the subject of this memoir was a constant associate, an especial favourite of Johnson, and frequently noticed by him under the name of "Queeny." Inheriting great intellect from her mother, who was an authoress of no mean reputation, and with the assistance of the tutelage of Dr. Johnson, a firm and highly cultivated mind resulted, which was destined to remain in full vigour for so lengthened a period. Amid the many friends who surrounded the deathbed of the great philosopher, and they numbered among them some of the greatest characters of the time, vieing with eachother who should most contribute to comfort his last moments, none was so constant in attendance as Miss Thrale, and their last interview was never forgotten by her. "My dear child," said he, "we part for ever in this world, let us part as Christians should-let us pray together." And after a prayer full of piety and affection, she left, and saw him no more alive. Previously to this event, family affairs had not gone smoothly. Mrs. Thrale, to the annoyance of her daughters, had married Signor Piozzi, and had proceeded upon what proved to be a prolonged continental tour. This deprived her of the home to which she had been so long accustomed, and her father having bequeathed her but a comparatively small allowance during her minority, she retired to the then unknown watering place, Brighton, where there was a small house belonging to the family, and resided there until she became of age. When that period arrived, she returned to London, her younger sisters living with her. On arriving in London, Mrs. Piozzi was welcomed by her daughters with every affection, which existed until her death, but the family was never again re-united. This lady and James Boswell were everlasting subjects for the satire of Dr. Walcot, better known under the soubriquet of Peter Pindar, as "Bozzy and Pozzy." The dutiful attentions of her children were not, however, appreciated by Mrs. Piozzi, as she left her property to a nephew of her husband, a foreigner, whom she adopted, and procured to be naturalised, with the honour of knighthood, and permission to assume the surname of Salusbury, of Brimbella, in the Vale of Clwyd. In 1808, Miss Thrale became the second wife of Admiral George Keith Elphinstone, who, by his brilliant exploits during the French war, had been created successively Baron and Viscount Keith, and being a personal friend of the Royal Family, the Viscountess immediately took the highest position in fashionable circles, which she maintained until her widowhood, in 1820, and had the honour of being one of the foundresses of the most exclusive assembly in the |