his deportment. His features might have been called stern, if the benignity of his heart had not beamed through them, and softened the severe outline of thought and lofty sentiment into that expression which preserved dignity, while it inspired confidence.

There have been men of more attractive, and others of more imperious talents, both in the senate and at the bar; but none who better united the talents which improve the institutions of states, with the generous and high-minded qualities that preserve their virtues. Occupied with great and various duties, his capacious mind appeared never to rest, and never to be wearied. His heart, that was swayed by the amiable influences of domestic life, expanded in the public service, and was full of a Roman devotion to his country.

The Death-bed of SHERIDAN.-Written probably in 1824.

THEY fled from thee-all the gay, titled, and proud,
When thy evening of life in the dreariness came,
They fled from thee-all who had join'd with the crowd
To echo thy praise in thy morning of fame.

To thy bed-side unbless'd came the harpies whose fangs
Were rudest and sharpest in fortune's decay,
And of all who should soften the victim's last pangs,
None scared the foul birds from their desolate

prey.

In loneliness wither'd the spirit that shed
The eloquent charm that might Senates command,
Who the mask and the pageant, and revelry led,
And wav'd over fashion a magical wand.

Not lonely-one minist'ring angel was there!

Oh, woman! how faithful, how changeless thou art To the man of thy love; tho' his eye gleam despair, And a wilderness gather its gloom round the heart.

The struggle is over-the mutes at the gate,

And the recreant grandeur which struck the worst blow Thy spirit had felt, ere it bow'd to its fate,

Now follows thy bier in the trappings of woe.

Oh faithless such chivalry!-ye who rely

On its promise, behold! how its friendship could spurn Misfortune's last claim, and leave genius to die,

And then, with late homage, embrace his cold urn!

They throng'd round his hearse who had let him depart,
Like an outcast, too mean and too worthless to save;
Who cheer'd not his gloom with one ray of the heart,
And threw the vain splendour of pomp on his grave!
With bards rest thy ashes, whose fate, like thy own,
Was neglect from the proud in life's cheerless decay;
Who were left, unbefriended, to wither alone,

By those who strew'd flowers on their passionless clay!
Had talents like thine but by virtue been crown'd,
Their blaze had not set in so sullen a night;
But the circle allured thee where folly was found,
And the red cup of Circe was sparkling and bright.

Had wisdom, O! SHERIDAN, guided thy mind,

She had taught thee that genius was best when its powers
Beam forth, like the sun, for the good of mankind,
Not neglecting the fruits in its fondness for flowers.

The glory, which genius thought never could die,
Too oft on the bosom of riot decays;

Like the bird, that while singing his wild song on high,
Droops, flutters, and dies by the rattle-snake's gaze.
Thy laurels were twin'd with the roses that grew
In the garden of pleasure, all flaunting and gay;
But the canker lurk'd under their brightness of hue,
And the rose and the laurel both wither'd away!

[The melancholy fact alluded to in the foregoing lines is mentioned in Sir Samuel ROMILLY's diary, printed many years afterward. We here subjoin the passage.-ED.

[1816, July] "13th, Sat. On the invitation of the family of Richard Brinsley SHERIDAN, I this day attended his funeral. I understood that it was to be very private, and that he was to be followed to the grave only by a few of his friends, and of those who had been particularly connected with him in politics. When I arrived at Peter Moore's house in George

Street, to which the body had been removed, as being near to Westminster Abbey, where it was to be buried, I was astonished at the number and the description of persons who were assembled there ;* the Duke of York, Lord Sidmouth, Lord Mulgrave, Lord Anglesea, Lord Lynedoch, Wellesley Pole, and many others, whose politics have been generally opposite to Sheridan's, and who could grace the funeral with their presence, only to pay a tribute to his extraordinary talents. How strange a contrast! For some weeks before his death, he was nearly destitute of the means of subsistence. Executions for debt were in his house; and he passed his last days in the custody of sheriffs' officers, who abstained from conveying him to prison merely because they were assured that to remove him would cause his immediate death; and now, when dead, a crowd of persons the first in rank, and station, and opulence, were eager to attend him to his grave. I believe that many, and I am sure that some, of the mourners were self-invited. Such certainly were three of the Prince's friends, Lord Yarmouth, Bloomfield and Leach. They sent a letter from Carlton House the day before the funeral, expressing a desire to attend, and their offer was not refused. The Prince [Regent] about ten days before SHERIDAN'S death, when he was in great distress, and after some of the newspapers had observed upon the strange inattention he met with, had sent him a present of £200; but Mrs. SHERIDAN had the spirit to refuse it. and when she communicated to her husband what she had done, he approved her conduct. The immediate cause of his death was reported to be an abscess; but the truth is, that his constitution was nearly worn out, and that his death was rapidly accelerated by grief, disappointment, and a deep sense of the neglect he experienced."-Sir Samuel Romilly's Diary, (vol. iii. p 261.) published in 1840.]

Parliamentary Reform—The Writer's Independence of Party Influence-Nov. 28, 1834.

INDEPENDENT as we are of party influence and party predilections, our readers are aware that we are not neutral as far as principles are concerned; nor need we now make a confession of our political faith, further than to say that as, in past struggles for power, in past conflicts of principle, and in the by-gone agitation of times of great and perilous excitement, we adhered to the Constitution of England in all essential points, requiring at the hands of our rulers only such modifications and reforms as seemed necessary to repair what time had enfeebled, or to restore what abuse had impaired; so it is our purpose to go on

"Among his old friends who attended [says Sir S. Romilly] were the Duke of Bedford, Lord George Cavendish, Lord Robert Spencer, Lords Holland, Erskine and Lauderdale."

in the same course, uninfluenced by power and unintimidated by faction, to vindicate the principles of our free and regulated Constitution from tyrannical usurpation on the one side, and from democratic violence on the other.

Our support of the Reform Bill arose from being convinced that the close-borough system was a perversion of the principles of representation. This abuse had a mixed origin in the vicissitudes occasioned by time, which had reduced flourishing towns to depopulated villages, or mere ruins, and in the ambitious encroachments of great men on corporate bodies, by whom large commonalties were deprived of their electoral rights, and a select few invested with the stolen privileges of the many. We believe that to extinguish the close boroughs politically, by transferring the elective franchise to great and populous towns and neighbourhoods, was not a change, but a restoration of the Constitution. It was in reality a process necessary to the conservation of the popular principle of our political system. That it was not done as well as it might have been done by Lord GREY'S Bill, we never denied; and instead of joining in the ignorant and ridiculous cry for "the whole Bill and nothing but the Bill," we ridiculed that cry, and described the Bill as requiring much emendation, more especially on account of its ill-contrived and clumsy machinery. We also objected to the qualification for the elective franchise by payment of taxes, which likened it to a Revenue Bill.

**

* *

But, anxious as we are to see the electoral rights of the people restored, we are no less anxious that the popular principle should not, any more than the aristocratical, or monarchical, be stretched beyond its proper limits. The beauty and strength of our mixed Constitution consists in the due balance and harmonious combination of its three constituent elements, which were never found so happily blended in any other political system. The great Roman orator, indeed, dreamed of such an association of the triple power of King, Nobility, and Commons as the British Constitution presents. It is shadowed forth in his immortal writings as an excellence scarcely possible to be realised, but, if attainable, transcending every other form of civil polity. This is the

Constitution admired by all free States, and which all enlightened foreigners have declared to be unrivalled, that we support and defend in its integrity, against all who would destroy its peculiar excellence by giving an undue preponderance to any of its elements, whether it be the kingly, the aristocratic, or the popular power.

Moral Condition of the People disregarded by Modern
Statesmen.-Jan. 7, 1834.

In all civilized countries, where wisdom sat at the helm of affairs, the moral condition of the people has ever been regarded by the Government as a matter of the highest importance. In this respect the governments and legislators of "the age of intellect" can stand no creditable comparison with many of those of earlier, and what are called, less enlightened

ages. Even a thousand years ago there was one who sat upon the throne of England who understood the science of Government-as far, at least, as domestic policy is concerned-better than any statesman who now exercises power or influence in any civilized State of Europe, in this the nineteenth century. We need not say we allude to the great ALFRED, whose original and wise institutions justly entitle him to be considered as the founder of the English monarchy.

His system as to the suppression of crime was that of prevention, which is much more efficient than punishment. The governments and legislators of modern days have reversed the plan-with them prevention is of no consequence, and punishment is all in all; therefore crime increases instead of being diminished, and will continue to increase as long as the Legislature, by its apathy, or its vicious acts, like the gin-cheapening statute, the Beer-shop bill, and many other pernicious measures which we could mention, makes itself an accomplice in the work of popular demoralization.

When ALFRED, by his extraordinary valour, military skill, and heroic perseverance, rid the country of its cruel and predatory enemies, the Danes, he set himself to the great duty of