It is highly creditable to Mr. Davidge to have produced this play, which he has done with great scenic splendour, and appropriateness of costume and decoration, and his liberality has been rewarded by overflowing audiences.

The two principal actors-Mr. Wallack in " "Tortesa," and Mr. Saville in "Angelo" are deserving of high commendation, both shared equally in the applause, and both displayed throughout that varied skill in their difficult art, which has won for them great and deserved celebrity.

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

PROGRESS OF INSURRECTION.

We have already given our opinion on the Chartist cause, and of the strong idealisms by which it is impelled. It is grounded on principle, and has its apostles, with more or less discretion, but one, at least, a Poet of the first water. When we last wrote, we condemned the press for throwing ridicule and contempt on a cause so supported, both by moral and physical means. Within a few days, and the cause has become a serious affair. Lord John Russell being applied, to by the magistrates of Birmingham, had permitted the London police force to be sent thither, which immediately on its arrival attacked the people in the Bull-ring, and altogether acted in such a manner, as evidently, in the judgment of Sir Robert Peel, if warrantable, required explanation. Arrests also have been made of Dr. Taylor and a George Julian Harney, and others, whether legally or not, Lord John Russell will not venture to opine-this can only be known by a person present at the transactions. But whether warrantable or unwarrantable, inexplicable or explicable, legal or illegal; these proceedings are to form the fit initiative for an application by his lordship to parliament for funds towards the establishment of a rural police, that on such occasions may act in the same equivocal manner, in any part of the country, on any summons, with greater authority and facility. We make no comment on this.

The matter then, becomes serious;-very serious. The sole excuse for Lord John Russell's being thus indifferent to the legality, and perhaps constitutionality of the whole proceedings, lies in this that the emergency spreads beyond all legal and constitutional limits. This is the head and front of the question-it has this extent-no less. The CHARTISTS ARE AT WAR WITH SOCIETY! Not an institution they would leave standing—they would level—to build anew, they say that is, to build themselves up together into the ONE INSTITUTION OF THE STATE!! Such are their declarations, expressed, implied, and carried out also by armed demonstrations. There is no mistake about it. All the scenes prefigured in the Chartist epic of "Ernest " are on the eve of being enacted. The curtain has already drawn up. Take the following, from that excellent and impartial paper, The MORNING HERALD of 11th July.

"Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tuesday morning.

"The Chartist meeting of last night has gone off well, but it has been determined to continue holding meetings every night, until the fate

of G. Julian Harney and Dr. Taylor is ascertained. There were no hustings erected, but after some delay a couple of tables were procured, on which the Chairman, Thomas Hepburn mounted, surrounded by the speakers, Avie, Mason, Rucastle, &c. The tenor of the speeches was very inflammable; peace and order were recommended, but at the same time the people were told to arm, and be ready to repel the hired assassins of the government. Tirades of abuse against the "shopocracy," who appear, from what was stated, to be the sole cause of the oppression of which the speakers complained, were poured forth unsparingly. The meeting lasted for about an hour, when they afterwards paraded some of the principal streets of the town with music, frequently cheering most loudly, stopping at intervals and shouting vociferously, at the same time holding up their staves in the air, and threatening vengeance on their oppressors. When opposite the house of the superintendant of the police they uttered several groans, and more than once we heard cries of "Pull him out." In this state of riot the town was kept till past 12 o'clock, when the crowd began quietly to disperse, without doing any injury to either person or property. Two of the banners were ornamented with daggers, which were paraded round the town. It was thought prudent to unship them when they arrived at the Forth."

Under these circumstances, Lord John Russell seems to think that it is quite indifferent who strikes the first blow. In this we hold that he is wrong. Society can afford to stand on the defensive, and should exhibit too, the superiority of the moral elements, that the physical-force principle may be abashed in their presence. Society is under no necessity to put itself in the wrong-and therefore no expediency. There were, too, secondary and severe political reasons against headlong proceedings. The national petition was in parliament, and Mr. Attwood had agreed with Lord John Russell himself that he should have Friday the 12th to bring forward his motion in the House of Commons to take it into consideration. The result of this should have been awaited. Who can tell what time may do? and ample provision as to time was in this case made. We have not space for Mr. Attwood's letter, but we can quote from the paper before-mentioned the information of the day.

"Until the decision of this motion of Mr. Attwood's is ascertained, and the ultimate decision of that gentleman as to what course he will pursue in the event of his motion being negatived, no further excitement is anticipated. Various reports are in circulation; amongst others it is stated that, whatever may be the result of the House of Commons, Mr. Attwood will visit Birmingham, and preside over a meeting of the people, with the view to further the principles enumerated in the petition to parliament by pressure from without."

Now in this constitutional course of proceeding, it is clear that time is an element, and that no immediate assault was needed. Take ye special care lest the Chartist body act with more forbearance and intelligence than the constituted authorities of the land! Beware how ye transfer to them the moral, as well as the physical constituents of political power! "We have all of us one human heart! and insurrection may become, what indeed incipiently it is, Revolution! 11th July. Mr. Attwood on Friday July 12, accordingly brought on his motion,

N. S.-VOL. II.

H H

that the House resolve into a committee on the petition, called the "National Petition," presented by him on the 14th ult. It is worthy of consideration that this petition is signed by no fewer than 1,285,000 persons. Now the number of the present elective franchise is not more. The Reform Act did ill, when it shut out the masses from the franchise, thus dividing the population into two large proportions of householders; those who can afford ten pounds a year rent, and those who cannot. The latter has accordingly set up a parliament of its own. We recollect prophesying this result in an article of our own in FRAZER'S Magazine in 1833, entitled THE BILL, NOTHING BUT THE BILL. Leaving this point, however, for the pre sent, let us consider the statement of Mr. Attwood.

THE WHOLE BILL, AND

Something of these demonstrations is due to the very uncivil manner in which the premier and the chancellor of the Exchequer have been in the habit of receiving deputations. Mr. Attwood complained that when deputations waited upon Lord Melbourne with the request that the labouring classes should be allowed to live by their labour, his lordship was foolish enough to reply, that "the people of Birmingham were not the people of England." They were some of them, at any rate. The Chartist demonstrations are the reply made to such exasperating

taunts.

We have Mr. Attwood's word for it that the National petition is signed by the élite of the operative community. "Nor is it the mere workmen endure the sufferings complained of. They are also shared by the middle classes-that is, by producers, manufacturers, and merchants. But it is to the interest of the latter class to conceal the distress that prevails. Suppose a capitalist with £20,000 come to be three years without any income returning from it-what was his position? If he attempted to call in his capital he was ruined-he was ruined if he stood still-he was ruined if he went on-and he was ruined if he went back. Such in short is the condition of four-fifths of the manufacturers and merchants in England, and of the whole productive classes." The petition itself shows the political tone prevailing in the different towns from which it came, and that it varies in its intensity according to the local presence of want. In an inverse ratio with the prosperity of each town is the number of signatures to it. The people of Bristol are in a prosperous state, and therefore the signatures from Bristol are comparatively few.

Lord John Russell affected to undervalue this petition, and made one of those half-and-half speeches which are so disgraceful to any man presuming to hold the rank of a statesman. Mr. D'Israeli however, insisted on looking at the subject in its true light. Ordinary courses were not at the bottom of these outbreaks. What we have now to fear are not tumults; but it is organisation. The Riots of Birmingham have been made by the police, not by the Chartists. The proceedings of the latter have been quietly conducted their work is that of a public and secret organisation. They await the coming of a Sacred Month, during which they will shew what they mean. In the meantime take some taste of it in George Julian Harney's words. "A national holiday for a month! each man to provide himself with a month's provisions. Absurd, however, to think it could all be laid up at once! The thousand

hills and the cattle thereon are the LORD's, and what is the LORD'S is the PEOPLE'S. They could not starve. He would not tell them to steal the cattle, neither would he tell them to arm themselves; but he thought they should prepare. He would say-a musket in one hand, and a petition in the other. That would bring them to their senses; and if they will not lend you an ox or a sheep, borrow it yourselves." The Chartists are neither suppressed nor subdued-they only avoid coming to blows before the time. The lull before the tempest is the symbol of the great calm in the minds of armed millions, during the phantasmal interim between the conception and acting of a dreadful thing. Scorn not the deep hush of terrible expectation-not though it last for years. The storm will come at last!

Even while we are writing-the blow is struck. A Chartist orator had named the 15th of July, as one proposed commencement of the Sacred Month. On Monday the 15th, Birmingham was in flameshouses are burned and gutted, and the property they contained destroyed publicly in the Bull-ring, a bonfire being made of the same. And the mob had it all their own way-for though warned, the magistrates were yet unprepared, perhaps despising or disbelieving the warning, or, themselves being not long since agitators, they were now without power as being without moral authority. The newspapers' account relate the matter as if it had an accidental origin in the circumstances of the day. We believe, and have reasons for our belief, that it was a pre-appointed demonstration, and designed as the Chartist recognition, of the reply which the National petition had received in the House of Commons on Friday last, when a Committee of Inquiry was refused.

On the Tuesday evening a memorable scene took place in the House of Lords. The Duke of Wellington administered a majestic and serene rebuke to Viscount Melbourne, which both in spirit and style was one of the most extraordinary displays ever recorded in history. "The town," said His Grace, "had been treated like a town taken by storm. Nay, he had not seen any thing in sacking a town equal to it. He had seen many towns taken by storm, but never had such outrages occurred in them as had been committed in this town only last night; before the eyes of magistrates appointed by the Secretary of State for the home department. Property had been taken out of houses, and burnt in the public streets notwithstanding the presence of the police and troops." Again" He was surprised that the noble Viscount, considering the station he held, should only have known of the state of things in Birmingham by the accounts he had seen-and that he should not know at all, whether the riots were owing to the absence of magistrates, or the absence of troops, or to the fault of troops standing by, or to any thing similar to that which had happened some few years ago at Nottingham. The noble Lord knew nothing—and did nothing! THIS IS NOT THE WAY IN WHICH THIS GREAT COUNTRY OUGHT TO BE GOVERNED!!" The "National Convention," it seems, affect ignorance of the demonstration on the 15th, and propose that the "Sacred Month" should commence on the 18th August. That this is a ruse, it is clear. Did not the members receive the proposition of Mr. Attwood, to petition again, with loud laughter and sneering contempt? Does not this illegal body continue to sit, though without the excuse of petitioning Parlia

ment? It is time that the people of England should enquire, Whether we have a Third House? "Chartism," says the Morning Herald justly, "is, to a great extent, an evidence of deep suffering on the part of the labouring classes. That suffering must be alleviated-or Chartism will scarcely die out. The New Poor Law has made a greater number of chartists than all the agitators in the kingdom have ever been able to do. Look at the condition of vast bodies of labourers—their hours of daily toil gradually increasing-their wages regularly declining in amount. Yet these men have been told, when they applied for justice, to trust to their own resources.' Is not physical force among these resources?" Shall we take this shewing, and permit the existence of the National Convention as the legitimate representative of the wrongs suffered and the rights demanded? If so-let the Government, if we yet have one, be doing. Up and be doing, we say to every Member of Parliament-to every member of society.

It is one among the wise dispensations of Providence, that the present ministry should have the charge of opposing these signs of the times. Had they been out of office they would, for party purposes, have impeded the measures that they must now adopt. This has always been a part of the Whig tactics when out of place. They then trade on public confusion, and adopt every conceivable plan for increasing it, reckless of all consequences, save of their own restoration to office. This evil they cannot now do. They must fight the battles of society against insurrection-skilfully or unskillfully-rightly or wrongly-they must array themselves on the side of order.

The present condition of public affairs is the natural result of the long collision that has existed between the antagonist parties in the state. The war of parties must and shall cease to rage! All our institutions are trembling with the force of the conflict-the highest Insitution— the monarchy itself is in peril! The Queen needs protection. She found herself in certain circumstances which she has not yet been in a position to evade, whatever appearances may have suggested to the contrary. The very Court, to whose misconduct she and her fair fame are alike liable, was made for her and not by her. Nothing is her own but her Personal Character. In this we recognise a determination of purpose and a fortitude of mind. She is evidently ruled by the idea of justice, and a strong desire to conciliate all parties in the state. It may be the will and wisdom of Providence, that has ordained by the weak instrument of a young and royal maiden, that a purpose of mercy shall be operated in this land. It is for the Sovereign to hold the balance even. It must be the heart's desire of every good man to see the end of these miserable dissensions. It is time that the names of Papist and Protestant should be merged in the higher and all-inclusive one of Catholic. Feuds begotten of obsolete times should cease to be remembered, and we should learn to depend on our common Christianity. "Behold, how good and pleasant a thing it is for Brethren to dwell together in unity."

26th July, 1839.