he manliness to
suggest, supposing that he has the head to discover, a remedy for the
evils which every honest mind perceives in the social condition of the
humbler classes. The most they have done is to drag further into the
light miseries which every one saw without their aid--to point out
exultingly distinctions of rank, which have always been, and can never
cease to be--to remove bonds of sympathy, that united for mutual benefit
one class with another--and to widen as far as possible the breach that
has arisen between the governed and the governing of this great empire.
We do them injustice--they have accomplished more. In seasons of
difficulty and trial, in those periods of convulsion and danger, to
which all great societies are liable, and a large mercantile community
like our own is especially subject, they have assuaged alarm and
appeased hunger by writing books with a _moral_; such a moral as that
upon which THE CHIMES was founded, and which the snarling author of Mrs
Caudle's Lectures loves to inculcate: we mean the moral that teaches the
loveliness of all that lies in the hovel, the hatefulness of all that
dwells in the palace; the sublimity of vulgarity, and the ridiculousness
of high birth; the innate virtues of ignorance and poverty, and the
equally essential wickedness of wealth and rank. Such are the exertions
of modern philanthropy! Such are the self-denying, humble, and glorious
achievements of the successors of John Howard!

There are two classes of philanthropists very busy just now on this side
the English Channel: viz., that composed of men who are particularly
anxious that no laws whatever should be passed for the effectual
punishment of the midnight assassin in Ireland; and that which stands up
for the murderer in England, denying the right of the legislator to
punish any man with death, and the expediency of the punishment,
provided the right be conceded. Should society be restored to
tranquillity, and crime be expurgated by the success of these
gentlemen's endeavours, it is very clear that France will take the wrong
track, by following the counsel of the belligerent M. Michelet,
according to whose views, peace and order are to be obtained only by the
proclamation of war, and the shedding of blood for the glory of his
native country. "My only hope," says the valiant historian, "is in the
flag." Every time, he tells us, that he sees the bayonets of the French
army, his heart bounds within him. "G