our views are supported by men venerable as antiquity and learning can make them.

....

In conclusion, it may be interesting for us to cite a few opinions on our authors. And first we have Dr. Johnson, who says, "Shakspere, with his excellencies, has likewise faults, and faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any moral purpose. ... He makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to show in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked. .... He had no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to one age or nation, without scruple, the customs, iustitutions, and opinions of another, at the expense not only of likelihood but of possibility. . . . . In tragedy.... the effusions of passions which exigence forces out, are, for the most part, striking and energetic; but whenever he solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity." Mrs. C. Lennox says, "The violation of poetical justice is not the only fault that arises from the death of Hamlet; . . . . his revenge becomes interested, and he seems to punish his uncle rather for his own death than the murder of the king his father. . . . The whole conduct of the play ('Cymbeline') is absurd and ridiculous to the last degree; ... his 'Winter's Tale' is greatly inferior to the old paltry story that furnished him with the subject of it." Respecting the poetic genius of Milton, Channing has many fine thoughts: we select at random:-"We would ask, in what age or country has the pastoral reed breathed such sweet strains as are borne to us on the oderiferous wings of gentle gales' from Milton's Paradise..... His numbers have the prime charm of expressiveness. They vary with, and answer to, the depth, or tenderness, or sublimity of his conceptions, and hold intimate alliance with the soul. Milton's poetry, though habitually serious, is always healthful, and bright, and vigorous. It has no gloom. He took no pleasure in drawing dark pictures of life for he knew

by experience that there is a power in the soul to transmute calamity into an occasion and nutriment of moral power and triumphant virtue. We find nowhere in his writings that whining sensibility and exaggeration of morbid feeling, which makes so much of modern poetry effeminizing." In "Characteristics of Men of Genius" we read: "As basis or fountain of his rare physical and intellectual accomplishments, the man Milton was just and devout. He is rightly dear to mankind, because in him--among so many perverse and partial men of genius,-in him humanity rights itself; the old eternal goodness finds a home in his breast, and for once shows itself beautiful. His gifts are subordinated to his moral sentiments; and his virtues are so graceful that they seem rather talents than labours. Among so many contrivances as the world has seen to make holiness ugly, in Milton, at least, it was so pure a flame, that the foremost impression his character makes is that of elegance."

We have not followed seriatim the remarks of our opponents through lack of courtesy or want of compliment to them. We have derived much pleasure ourselves from the course of reading and thought this debate has imposed upon us, and doubt not that they have done so likewise. We assure the reader our object has been to find the truth, and place it before him—our adjudicatorin an interesting manner; to vindicate the genius of our incomparable Milton from that slight which the tendencies of our age would cast upon his fair fame. The diluted translation of Germanisms has had a pernicious effect upon the standard of literary taste; but this fashion of thought having passed its culminating point, and the good sense of our countrymen having a practical tendency toward high moral sentiment, we may fairly expect, ere long, some gifted mind will give to the world a code of criticism and taste, in which the purity of gospel perfection will be acknowledged as the primary element of true genius. Then will Milton be placed on the pinnacle of fame by the acclamation of an admiring nation, who have drunk deep at the fount of his inspiration. L'OUVRIER.

sanctity. The absurdity of such illogical deductions we need not here expose. Hence B. S. calls primogeniture "a time-honoured institution, interwoven with the habits and affections of society." If we are to understand by “honoured," established merely; by "habits and affections," evil habits and depraved affections, B. S. is right, not otherwise. Such honour, however, is not worth parade, or such habits worthy of continuance, such affections worth cultivation, but vice versa. The result of this advocacy comes rather unexpectedly by way of admission, that primogeniture is not a good institution, to calling it an evil one, morally and essentially, as there can be no neutral ground for it to stand upon. This "slight defence" begins with flagrant sophistry, and, if we are to follow out his own deductions, ends in gross absurdity. We would remind B. S. that his arguments are much the same, not one iota superior to those which have been advanced in favour of slavery, episcopacy, or popery; or that the same might have been, and doubtless were, used against the abolition of Suttee, or Hindoo infanticide; and that the weakness of his arguments is highly indicative of the defencelessness of his cause. B. S. denominates those who advocate the abolition of the law "extreme politicians,"'-a term indefinite indeed! Did he mean red republicans or chartists? We like plain writing, but in the absence of that we must understand the appellation comparatively. Let us see. Some politicians go so far as to prove a given institution "not good," and straightway set about a "slight defence" to perpetuate its evil existence: this is one extreme. Other politicians, however, having shown the given institution to be radically wrong, straightway advocate its abolition to the best of their powers: this is another extreme. While we are sorry to find B. S. in the one, we may congratulate ourselves on being in the other, as the most consistent, and conclude that the greater the distance between us on this subject the better for our honour in the unmistakable meaning of the word.

B. S.'s next step is to impress on his readers that a great change in our laws would create a great national excitement. Every reader of history must know this to his content. Whenever truth enters the

dominions of error, we expect victory for the former, but never without a previous struggle. What! and if in such a glorious worldredemptive movement, a nation should tremble convulsed in the very heart of it, or the powers of darkness recoil for ever, is the advocate of divine truth to cease his advocacy, or the proclaimer of universal justice towards universal man to retire? yea, more, are both to say, We have come to the crisis, and now we will turn renegade, desert our posts, abandon our arms, because we fear the Divinity in truth and justice intends to make fallen man tremble? Verily, no, B. S.! We have a strong faith in but one conservatism, that of truth and justice, for we know that these shall hereafter knit together all nations in a glorious brotherhood: whereas, the conservatism that pervades this article, and sits enthroned among "a titled aristocracy," admits only just enough of these divine principles to excite ceaseless antagonism.

We have not space to answer B. S. on "the right of property," it is somewhat foreign to the point at issue-the disposal of individual possession by law. Does B. S. presume so on our ignorance, or glory in his own, as to think we shall acquiesce in his assertion that "primogeniture is only a custom, not a law." Is there no law in our code to the effect that the property of an intestate shall descend to his eldest son and heirs? Is there no law of primogeniture? Are not the terms of the debate, "Ought the Law of Primogeniture to be repealed?" B. S. has discovered that there is no law at all, "only a custom" at every one's disposal. We should have thought that any writer in the British Controversialist had sufficient confidence in the editors to distrust themselves, rather than to question the terms of debate, much more than to dogmatize upon them. If we are to decide how far B. S. is worthy of the compliment paid him by "Irene," as a "man learned in the law," we fear the real merit would excite laughter instead of eclat. The political digressions which characterize this slight defence," "Irene" has taken up in his article.

66

The remaining space of our reply we devote to T. U.'s article. Here we meet a similar defect to that which is so manifest in B. S.'s article-an attempt to avoid the vital point involved. T. U. says, "It is idle to maintain that the law of primogeniture is

unjust or arbitrary in character, as such an objection might be applied with much greater force to the whole question of the right of the present proprietors to the ownership of the land.". It were just as logical to assert the equity of slavery, on the ground of the justice or injustice of transportation.

If it is idle to maintain that that which is essentially unjust, is unjust, or arbitrary, is arbitrary, because anything else may be so, we shall soon cease to believe that our legislature is progressive. The right of proprietorship to which T. U. refers, is nothing to the point, or we might vindicate our belief, that as it regards the soil on which we tread, no man has a right to more than he can and will cultivate well. Wherever we find either waste land, or badly cultivated land, we have the primary principle of national decay at work. If primogeniture be unjust and arbitrary, which we hold true, it cannot be idle, it must be right and expedient to maintain the same without abatement, till it cease to be. For what is the object of law but to establish universal justice. When it fails of this, it is a negation of itself. With such a flippant comment as T. U. makes on the vital point in the opening of his article, the reader is quite prepared for what follows, as no one would expect a house to abide a storm, or the depredations of time, whose foundation was laid in the sand. He manifests the same horror at a great change as B. S., and concludes that were the law of primogeniture repealed, our great political institution must soon subside in darkness and chaos! It were idle indeed here to show that there is no possible connexion between the repeal of a bad law and fiendish revolutions. We would remind T. U. that the terrible French revolutions did not arise from repealing a bad law-quite otherwise,

from the oppression of bad laws and tyranny. To repeal a bad law is to vindicate truth and supreme justice-is indeed a great and good work, and "men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles."

Again: TU. asks, in order to justify the law, "What claim have children upon a father other than that they may be maintained in infancy, properly educated, and placed in the way of supporting themselves through life?" If T. U. believes this much at heart, we may say he is better than his creed, and cannot therewith consistently hold his position. Is he not aware that the law of primogeniture stands opposed to this, and does not admit a claim so natural? If it did in the case of a father intestate, it would make some provision for the infancy, the education, and establishment in life, of the junior branches of the family. Surely the moral obligation involved is not to be disregarded. In the case supposed, the law evidently acts for the father; but morally considered, had it not ought to act as a father? According to T. U.'s definition of the children's claim on the father, the law is evidently unjust and partial, since it negatives the claim, or acts as though it had never existed. Thus have we shown from our opponent's assertion or admission of the essential point involved, that the existing law of primogeniture is the embodiment of injustice; and what greater argument, we may ask, can be adduced in favour of its abolition?

In conclusion, we may truly say, if B. S. and T. U. have advanced the best arguments in favour of primogeniture, we may pronounce it a fallen cause, and rest assured it only needs the continued advocacy of its repeal by those who love their nation, to secure its ultimate and total abolition. Buckingham.

ROLLA.

"Thou, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie, That kings, for such a tomb, might wish to die." Feeling, however, an uneasy sense of vitality, and doubting whether "Irene" has really