T A IT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, FKOM JANUARY TO DECEMBER, 1859. VOL. XXVI. EDINBURGH : SUTHERLAND & KNOX.-LONDON: PARTRIDGE & CO. MDCCC LIX. . A Moss-Grieve's Tales - Rob Tamson's Pot Burns, Robert, The Intellectual Character- Carlyles's History of Frederick the Great Circumstantial Evidence, The Smetburst Case 548 Dr. Cumming's “Great Tribulation Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia , Bertram to the Most Beautiful Lady Henry III., King of France and Poland Political Narrative 60, 120, 176, 245, 307, 361, Literary Register 57, 115, 177, 235, 299, 364, Parliamentary Reform . 431, 488, 553, 618, 682, 745 Poets and Poetry Life of Mary Anne Schimmel Penninck 334 Law Reformers and the County Courts 513 Question of 1859, The. 70, 141, 206 Royal Assurance Company, The Spring. 172 Tne Counties of England and their Quaint Old 183 ? Lays and Epitaphs 291 The Pulpit The Peace 2 573, 676, 737 The Builder's Strike 112 The Coming Crisis 247 Three Kingdoms and their Colonies 263 Two Poets 297 The Ministerial Reform Bill 309 The Ancient Church 325 Walpole, Horace, Last Journals of 333 What shall we do with the money ? 399 . 667 685 701 . 192 . TAIT'S EDINBURGHI MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1859. THE QUESTION OF 18 5 9. The Reform movement is the great ques part is that they are ever out of one fit tion of 1859. That is now acknowledged into another of grief. They are the famiby all parties. This position is at least in lies of Lamentation and Woe. The Asiatics advance of that held by Reform for some belong to the house of Lamentation—our past years. Enveloped in mists of pro- London mutes are of the race of Woe. mises its form could scarcely be seen, and They never tell their griefs. Money goes can scarcely be seen yet; only we have for them, and in return there is not a word. hope that it will take consistency and A close observer may perceive, from a shape during the present year. redness of one exposed feature, and many Pour parties exist prominently in this pimples , that they console themselves for question, and many more who can hardly their artificial sorrows, and take for their be said to exist, except in torpor, yet. sufferings vengeance in pewter, at times The obstructionists have to be thawed when there is none to see them; but in into freshness, vigour, and vitality. Here their cups they are never uproarious. If and there they open, rub their eyes, and they ever get drunk, which we sincerely repeat the stereotyped groans of all time hope they never do, it must be in a grave respecting the constitution, the church, senatorial manner, befitting judges and and the throne, going to the dogs in mutes. crumble and fragments. Thitherward they Mutes funereal are allied with mutes have been going, at reasonable intervals, political; but the latter, in our country, within the memory of the oldest inha- are of the Egyptian, Gipsey, or Syrian bitant; and if they keep only going at the races. They make a horrrid noise over same rate they will be gone when the heat the greatest sin that we can put out of of the sun is expended—and astronomers sight. The wailings for the Test and tell us that, although diminishing-going, Corporation Acts was not equal to the namely—it will do for two million of years, woe heard when the rotten boroughs were or thereby, a sufficient time for this ex- urged to rest in peace. The mourners isting generation to contemplate. political begin considerably before the This muddle-headed class of enthusiasts death. They have usually three strings for all the past, will be better heard soon. to their harp—“ Constitution,” “ Church," They always come before a change, with “ Throne;" but they have others someevil omens and lamentable prophesyings. times. They are to use the three princiThe most miserable trade in Asia or Europe pal during the current year, with the is that of mourners by profession. It addition of " Plunder," "Property,” and matters not whether they be mutes, as in perhaps “ the old Nobility," on which they this country; or screamers, as in Syria. are to execute the variations. They are In either case they are bound to dress excellent and good people generally. If their features for the trade, and the worst any of their labourers wanted a certificate A |