that could be paid to us; for assuredly we never have considered that our stamp and status entitled us to the honour of being mistaken for a powerful and respected contemporary, "who has so long and so honourably held the first rank in literature." The title of the New Quarterly was not assumed by the present proprietary. It was originally started ostensibly as a nonpolitical review, but it was soon indirectly tainted with Teutonic liberalism. The New Quarterly, after it changed hands, at once enrolled itself amongst the supporters of Conservatism; and we have been proud to be recognized as following humbly, but earnestly, in the wake of those colossal defenders of the same cause, the time-respected Quarterly and Blackwood. It is better to be insignificant than insipid; even a little pretension will serve a cause better than pompous puerility. It is quite clear that the great body of conservatives in this country cannot be represented by one organ. There are certain specialties and recommendations which entitle every journal advocating constitutional principles to support, and there are, of course, varieties of views as well as of taste. On church matters, for instance, how is it possible that one paper can affect to be the sole authority? The selection of a newspaper should be an open question, left to the judgment and discretion of every conservative. We have old, and tried, and experienced journals, and these are assuredly entitled to every consideration, so long as they manfully and ably maintain the principles of the party. Readers of Bell's Weekly Messenger, the John Bull, the Sunday Times, the Era, the Press, the St. James's Chronicle, the Standard, the Morning Herald, and the evening editions of the two last-mentioned journals, can assign reasons for their faith in their favourite papers. There are also other representives of Conservative feeling, such as the Guardian, the English Churchman, the Union, who justly have their admirers. The Illustrated London Review also reminds us that the success of Mr. Hannay, as editor of an Edinburgh paper, is a proof that Conservative Journalism is not at a low ebb. Now, we are gratified beyond measure at Mr. Hannay's brilliant career; but what does he in the north, when he should be called upon to serve the cause in the south? How is it that there is not one of the highest posts on the London press occupied by this able writer? It is not

from choice that he is thus ostracised. The mention of Hannay's name reminds us of the heavy loss to Conservative journalism of two of its most distinguished members, one unfortunately by death, the other from causes which are not pleasant to specify. Whatever the cause, Conservative journalism cannot afford to lose such pens. It is these constant secessions which cause such mischief to the Conservative press of the present day. Take the case of the Press newspaper, than which, from 1855 to 1858, there was not a more brilliant and ably written journal in existence. We pass over silently its subsequent position, and only express a hope that the effort now being made may increase and render permanent its present reputation. Mr. Coulton's premature decease has been an irreparable loss for Conservative journalism. He was the founder of the Britannia, and died in harness as editor of the Press. He was a contributor to the Quarterly and to the New Quarterly. Mr. Coulton was one of the most effective leader-writers and powerful reviewers we have ever known, either in this or other countries; and we have been in contact for some years with the chief contributors to the continental press, particularly the writers in the French, German, Spanish, Italian, Belgian, and Dutch journals. The masterly articles in the Press during Mr. Coulton's career, will not easily be forgotten for their remarkable sagacity and foresight. To eminent statesmen and distinguished diplomatists have often been ascribed Coulton's writings. To read the Press on the Russian war, would give the notion that the writer was gifted with prophecy. But Coulton was a statesman as well as a journalist. He was capable of conceiving and promulgating the policy of a party, The masterly skill with which he would develope all the salient points of a political controversy-the profundity of his historical information—the promptness with which he could bring his reminiscences to bear-the grace with which he illustrated his subjects—were equally remarkable. As a man, he was a true patriot; he loved our country and our institutions; he was a thorough Englishman. A more honest and simple-minded man, with all his vast attainments, could not be met with. Such a

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character, had he lived, must have found his way into parliament. His last earthly ambition was to conduct or found a Conservative morning newspaper. He had his own notions of earrying on such an undertaking, and we may add that these were not the stereotyped formula with which the editors of the day content themselves. Here was one of the unknown workers whose name, from the anonymous system of English journalism, is known to so few. He was the representative of enlightened Conservative opinion-and wrote boldly and fearlessly. He was not in a state of servitude or subserviency to his party, for the leaders thereof knew his integrity, and respected his independence.

We should like to see a Conservative organ in active circulation amongst the working population of the manufacturing towns. What an appalling amount of squalor would be disclosed, which the rampant Radical journals take especial care not to make known to the world! It is only in the returns of the RegistrarsGeneral, that the battle of life in the cities of commercial freedom can be studied. What a noble editorial task would it be, to publish detailed accounts of the physical and moral condition of the operative classes, who are under the especial care and protection of the cottonocracy! There is a press to denounce the "rich and luxurious" landowners; and the moneyed and mercantile classes believe in every statement which affects the character of a "bloated aristocracy." Now, we have no desire to flatter the rich and great-there are duties in every rank of life; but when we contrast the rural homes of the humble classes with the dwellings of the drudges who are doomed to die the slaves of a mighty material force, how convinced do we feel that a more equalized press might in time accomplish a great change, which will assuredly never emanate from sulky sufficient radicalism in the smoky toilsome towns! How have the doctrines of liberalism contributed to the comforts and enjoyments of the masses in manufacturing districts? When there is a cry of hunger from a great city, one of those sudden advents of intense misery which a severe season will periodically produce-when starvation stalks through a manufacturing town, the staple of which has been sacrificed for the exclusive profit of a foreign

nation, where are your free trade leaders to preside over meetings to relieve their fellow-creatures? Do you hear the "unadorned eloquence" and "pugilistic vigour" of the trading agitators at those assemblies where subscriptions are to be raised? No; seek for the manufacturers' oratory elsewhere. Go to the large hall, where the "exclusive circles" are to be attacked-where the hereditary legislators are to be abused— where equality and fraternity are to be preached, but not practised. And for the suffering operatives and artisans will be provided, certainly intellectual food-they will be told to study political economy, to rail at primogeniture, to shout for reform, but for the food of the body they will not have a mouthful. The Coventry victims of Gladstone, Cobden, and Bright, need not expect much relief from the French treaty managers and other friends; but it is the aristocrats whom the working men have been taught to abuse and despise, who in the hour of distress at once come forward, and with princely liberality subscribe large sums, besides seeking every mode of finding employment for the factory workers, who have been recklessly turned out of employment to carry out a theory. We have innumerable journals-demagogical and social-as the Journal des Débats justly states, to attack the Queen, the House of Lords, the aristocracy, parliament, the laws of property; and there is complete liberty, unbounded licence, in fact, to "wound all the sentiments of religious England;" but where is the press to point out to the working-classes the monstrosity and wickedness of such incendiary publications. Here is the Morning Star of December 12th before us. Immediately following a telegraphic report of Mr. Bright's reform flare-up at Leeds, is a letter headed “Just Repudiation," and signed "A Country Clergyman," (who is he?) printed with all the honours of large type, which letter actually— à propos of the China war and the fortification war—recommends that the debts of the nation should be repudiated. In the same number of the Morning Star (the Manchester Bright organ be it remembered) there is a leading article, in which it is intimated that it will depend upon the character of the future monarch of this kingdom, whether the agitation for a Republic is to be commenced; for, adds the Star, sneeringly and patroniz

ingly-"Queen Victoria is protected from attack upon her throne and dignity" by a safeguard infinitely more effectual than that of statute or even common law-that is, royalty is on sufferance from the Star and its supporters. This is, at all events, plain writing. We know what we have to look forward to. Equally unequivocal is Reynolds's Newspaper of December 9th, which has an enormous circulation amongst the working classes. Its first "leader" is headed, "The Territorial Tyrants and Robbers -Mr. Bright on Primogeniture and Entail." Mr. Reynolds is strong in epithets-it looks as if he kept a stock ready in a drawer, and took them out to stick in "his articles" promiscuously. "He writes of the iniquities, calamities, monopolies, robberies, immoralities," of the present system. He denounces the Lords, their parasites, and other ignoble dependants, subsisting in sloth and splendour, their lies, slanders, scurrilities, and calumnies. He styles them privileged plunderers of the working classes. The laws of entail and primogeniture, asserts Mr. Reynolds, are the twin accursed devices of the aristocracy for the maintenance of its political and territorial monopolies. He informs his readers that the eldest sons of British peers are unintellectual noodles and moral scamps, because they happen to be the first-born. According to this theory of Mr. Reynolds, the youngest sons are not unintellectual and immoral. If so, the peers who have been born younger sons, and who have acquired their titles by the deaths of elder brothers, are exempt from Mr. Reynolds's malediction as regards intellect and morality; but the younger sons, he says, swallow up the hard earnings of the "people's labour," enjoying all the sinecures in church, army, navy, civil service, and in our colonial possessions. The huge landed estates were all got by force and fraud. The church is the handmaid and the prostitute of aristocratic statesmen, and the wet-nurse of noble and hereditary sucklings; but we will not tire the patience of our readers by further citing the blasphemous, rancorous, and revolutionary diatribes of Mr. Reynolds, the English representative of the Marats, Dantons, and Robespierres of bygone days; but we would again repeat, that the only cheap journal to penetrate to the habitations of the working classes, against whom the sedition we have been pained