TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, FROM JANUARY TO DECEMBER, 1855. VOL. XXII. EDINBURGH: Y DCCC LV, INDEX TO TO VOLUME XXII. PAGE PAGE 209, 268 . . 65 . . . American Humbug, The Great 73 Maine Liquor Law Movement, The ... 423 129 Martial Success, Historic Illustrations of the Secret of . 358 Mary Sutherland. A Tale . . . 612, 658, 711 526 Men and Movements of Our Times :- 1 555 II. Aberdeen and Palmerston 513 III. Lord John Russell and the Earl of Derby 173 385 IV, Non-Intervention and Arbitration . 293 V. Administrative Reform 429 Minstrelsy of the Middlesex Border, A 756 352 . 705 159, 744 237 14 Notice of a Volume Printed for Private Cir. 88 549 601 449 . 729 Phillips, The Late Professor, T. K. Hunt, and J. G. Lockhart . Poetry :- , 170 . 677 595 Dei Sepoichri 300 Elegy. Written on a Wet Morning . 681 51 302, 363 743 Mansfield at Temeswar 499 741 165 759 729 . 502 157 649 Political Novels, A Brace of . . . 762 Political Register 51, 116, 281, 242, 308, 373, 435 502, 562, 627, 692, 761 337 214 Prescott's History of the Reign of Philip II. 732 390 257 . . . Rank-Jobbing in the Army. . 331 Retrospections of a Reverist; or, How I Ilave Lived and Loved 17, 81 582 547 Sicily, A Glance at . 754 Sidney, Spenser, and Elizabethan Romance · 577 597 641 145 29 494 586 476 . 531 Telse Wollersien. A Page from the Tragedy 604 · 399, 459, 520, 592 45 345 . . The history of English parties since the enact-stung into political death by the fangs of a com ment of the Reform Bill, is one of the most in- bination of parties internally harmonious as “a structive chapters in the political history of any jar of Egyptian eels, every one wriggling to the people. Much that is interesting lies upon the top." surface. There is seen at a glance the presence Parties were not dead, they were only subof new political elements. From the commence- divided. In that subdivision there appeared a ment of Parliamentary government there had great chance of popular gain. The balance of existed the distinction, more or less broadly parties was destroyed, and it could only be remarked, of conservative politicians from re- stored by accessions of public confidence to this forming politicians,—a distinction generally party or to that. There was no political quesequivalent to the defence of prerogative on the tion sufficiently commanding public interest to one hand and of popular rights on the other. In constitute a new principle of cohesion. The the struggle for the Reform Bill, kingly prero- Whig doctrine of finality and the popular wearigative was exerted on the side of popular rights, ness of Chartism had set aside the suffrage quesand the idols of the populace became at once the tion. The ecclesiastical relations of the State sycophants and the masters of the Court. Pre- permanently interested only a few Churchmen sently was seen the recovery of Conservatism and some Dissenters. It was, therefore, around from an unnecessary alarm, and the recoil of some man, or group of men, at the head of one Democracy from an inevitable disappointment. of the many parliamentary parties, that the inThe vanquished adherents of corrupted consti- fluences which make a government must collect. tutional usages quickly discovered that what Russell, Derby, Aberdeen, and Cobden, were the they most valued had been retained, and much rival nuclei. Russell had the advantage of presof the rest might be retrieved. The victims of tige and of actual possession. Office fell to him, an exaggerated expectation of improvement on Peel's overthrow, by a most significant necesalmost as quickly discovered that they had sity. But neither the admiration of his heredigained nothing if not the power of gaining more. tary followers nor the influence of office could The formation of the great Peel party was the save him from the natural fate of little men unresult of the one discovery-Chartism, the re- blessed by the possession of a great principle. sult of the other. The Peel party placed its Languid efforts in the old civil-and-religiouschiefs in power ; Chartism saw its chiefs dis- liberty interest, even aided by the inveterate appear into prison, thence to emerge into im- fidelity of Radicals, failed to avert an ignominious potence. But the instructive contrast was not doom. Disraeli, Derby's lieutenant, overthrew him yet complete. Peel destroyed his party in in 1852, as Peel, Wellington's lieutenant, had carrying out the objects of a resistless popular overthrown him in 1835 and 1840. A second movement, and was forced from office because he time Whiggism perished of inanition--a second had exchanged for the headship of a party the time demonstrated its incapacity of independent idolatry of a nation. Then was demonstrated existence. But this time Russell made friends what Democracy had gained by the triumph with Aberdeen, as before he had made friends that seemed to have shattered Conservatism. with O'Connell; in both cases, aided by the inAnd then, too, was exhibited the fatuity of con- definite fears and hopes of Democracy. A coalitemporary impressions. While every one was tion was constituted. Aberdeen and Russell took shouting" Party is dead !" Peel was being office, with more than the acquiescence of B |