"Deposits in the savings banks had every where increased in Liverpool, Bir mingham, and Glasgow especially. At Manchester, the honourable Baronet contended, the present system of agitation had commenced-that system for which the President of the Board of Control had claimed credit,-that system of agitation which, by the admission of some honourable gentlemen, it appeared would have been carried on, if those who commenced it had not been shamed by the document which contradicted their statements-that system of agitatation which would have been still carried on if those who originated it, could have confined it within convenient bounds-if they had known how to get the control of it. But they had soon discovered that this agitation could not be well confined within the bounds they intended-of hostility to the landlords of this country, but that there were those, who, flinging off the lesson they had been taught, would agitate the agitators themselves; who would tell them, whether truly or not he did not say, We will not join you who provoke hostility to the landlord and agricultural interests of this country,—who impute to them selfish motives—who accuse them of wishing to do nothing, but grind down the poor-we will not be parties to your agitation, nor lend ourselves to your schemes, in the supposition that it is to increase the profit of the cotton-spinner, by lowering the price of corn, and lowering the price of wages also. The Delegates had been taught a salutary lesson; and they who fancied it was easy to commence agitation might find out when they commenced, they could not, so quietly as they imagined, prescribe the exact limits or boundaries between physical force and their system of moral excitement. "The corn-laws had not operated to increase the price of wheat, but only to stimulate agriculture. The Belgians were subject to the same corn-laws as the English. Something was to be regarded in a great state beyond the accumulation of wealth, and the closest economy. He much feared the consequences of making this great country dependent on all the numerous contingencies of war for a supply of corn. They had lived in times when the ambition of one man had been able to over-rule all the interests of commerce, that usually prevent foreign hostility. In the complicated relations of this country, seeing what had resulted,-that the fens had been drained-bad lands reclaimed-that the soil had been improved, and had contributed to the comforts and health of the inhabitants-from the encouragement of agriculture, he should regret to see that encouragement diminished, or to see the whole country (though it might be productive of great wealth) a series of manufacturing towns, connected by rail-ways running through abandoned rural districts. He would not consent to throw the protection which they now had for agriculture into the lottery of legislation, in the hope of drawing the prize for a good Corn Bill.” On Monday, the 18th, on the fifth night of the debate, Mr. Whittle Harvey made an able, but rhetorical speech in reply to Sir Robert Peel. But the conclusion seems to have been little affected, either by his speech or that of the different Irish members, including O'Connell, who spoke on that occasion-the result being, that Mr. Villiers' motion was lost by a majority of 147; there having been 195 in its favour, and 342 against it. On this particular question, both Houses of Parliament seem agreed-the Lords having, on a previous evening, come to the same conclusion as the Commons. On another question-the state of Ireland-a collision is threatened for, on Thursday, March 21, in the House of Lords, the Earl of Roden moved for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the State of Crime in Ireland. The Ribbonmen were outrageous; a systematic, organised, and secret conspiracy existed, by which, especially, farmers suffered. Its ultimate aim is the same as that of the Precursor Society-the separation of Ireland from England, which involved the great end of all-the Annihilation of the Protestant Faith. Notwithstanding the explanation of the Marquis of Normanby, and the vituperations of the Viscount Melbourne, the motion was carried by a majority of five-the Contents being 63, and the Non-contents 58. N. S.-VOL. I. 4 H On the next evening, March 22, Lord John Russell made a ministerial announcement of his intention, in the very first week after the recess, to ask the opinion of the House with respect to the Government of Ireland of late years; and, if that opinion should be adverse to the present Ministry, nothing, he concluded, would be left but to relinquish into other hands the government of the country. At the moment we are writing, we learn that the influence of Lord Melbourne is much affected by the position assumed by the National Convention and the Chartists. An insurrection is threatened, unless their petition, now in course of signature, be conceded by Parliament. At scch a crisis, the peculiar talents of the Duke of Wellington are more wanted than the expediences of the Viscount. The Duchess of Kent also is said to be stirring; and the conferences are frequent between the Monarch and the Soldier. Is it a Crisis? IV. THE CRISIS. We had written thus far last month, but were precluded from insertion by want of space. N'importe; said we, the question can be asked and answered in the same number; that's all the difference. Is it then a crisis? The 16th of April has come and gone. Lord John Russell has risen and spoken to one effect, and Sir Robert Peel has replied to another. Mr. Thomas Duncombe sought to clog the vote of confidence in the ministry with pledges for further reforms. The 17th exhibited specimens of Irish effervescence. The two following evenings went off very dully; and the last two were enlivened with the oratory of O'Connell, Shiel, and Stanley. Messrs. Leader and Grote, as became radicals, condemn. ed government in words, and voted for it in deed. If we quote no part of this debate, it is because we consider that in the occasion and exhibition of it, neither principles nor facts were involved. It was a mere party affair, concerning which any philosophic analysis would be wasted; and its only tendency, if tendency it had, was to increase the importance of democratic power, and, by re-action, the aristocratic ultimately. The ministry gained a majority of 22; and Mr. Duncombe lost his amendment by 218. By the loss, however, much more will be found to have been won than by the gain. What effect has the majority of 22 on the state of crime in Ireland? or on the political state of Ireland itself? Political state! It is a still higher question. It is a question of rival churches-nay, more, of rival episcopal churches! The historical successors of the Apostles are divided against one another. It is as if Peter and Paul were still contending, as when Paul "withstood Peter to the face." Nay, it is literally so, if the ecclesiastical legend is to be admitted, that the earliest Christians in Britain were first converted by St. Paul, and that the British Church originally existed independently of the church of Rome. Nothing happens-nothing is-but what is mythical. Admitting all this, consider again that Paul was not one of the twelve, and that no account exists of his ever having been ordained; and we derive in his person, a second order of apostleship, on which, we think, the Orielites have not sufficiently meditated; if they had, the mystical fancies of the Oxford Divines would have conceived some " deep truth" under the "pregnant instance." On the whole of this question, in connexion with the history and state of Ireland, we shall, in the order of our studies, present our readers with such solutions as may be ob. tained by prayer and fasting. V. LADY FLORA HASTINGS. People go to the theatre to see a father prefer his daughter's sacrifice to her dis honour. Imputations of dishonour have fallen on Lady Flora Hastings, at an illconducted Court, where the presence of Lord Viscount MELBOURNE nevertheless has not been awanting. Satisfaction is sought from the premier by the Hastings' family. He replies in brief and cold epistles, as if the reputation of a noble lady were to him of no more consequence than that of a streetwalker. The public mind that sympathises with Virginia and her father will sympathise with Lady Flora and her friends. If his lordship wants to play the part of Appius, he must be prepared for the fate of Appius. His administration will suffer more from this circumstance than from the motion of Lord Roden. THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE. NEW SERIES.-EDITED BY JOHN A. HERAUD, ESQ. VOL. I.] JUNE, 1839. MILTON. PART THE THIRD. [No. 6. Ir is observable that whenever God the Father, and the Son, are mentioned in Milton's two poems of Paradise, the language of the Scriptures is as much as possible adopted. It is questionable, however, if the first person in the blessed Trinity be not too frequently, as well as familiarly, introduced; and whether the sentiments attributed to God the Father, connected as they necessarily are with the main subject of the poem, are not inappropriate to his character. They would have proceeded with less impropriety from the Son, who is also emphatically the Word of God. This would have occasioned a different disposition of many parts of the poem, but would have precluded those familiar colloquies which have been, in our opinion, justly censured, as giving a degraded view of the "secret counsels" of heaven. It would have been better to describe the Father as being invisible and inaudible to angels, and present alone in the Son, in whom only "The Father shone Substantially expressed." and through whom only the decrees of Omnipotence should be promulged. The course adopted makes the Father his own Word. This is the more observable, as the chief argument in Milton's "Christian Doctrine" is the essential distinction between the persons of the Father and the Son, whence he would infer the inferiority of the Messiah as of a Son to a Father. "God," also says Milton, 66 as he cannot be seen, so neither can be heard"-" He dwells in the light which no one can approach unto, whom no one hath seen nor can see. "Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape." But it is doubtful if he considered the Father as essentially invisible and inaudible, but to men only. At any rate, in the Paradise Lost, he describes the angels as both beholding and hearing him "About him all the sanctities of heaven Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received N. S.-VOL. I. 4 I Also the Father personally addresses to them that question, at which "All the heavenly quire stood mute, And silence was in heaven.”—Book iii. 217–218. This essential invisibility of the Paternal Godhead makes the first person of the Trinity an improper subject for painting. That of the Dove is the only shape in which the Holy Spirit may be legitimately represented. "And with mighty wings outspread Dove-like, satst brooding o'er the vast abyss, But it is probable, as Milton asserts, that "the likeness of a Dove was not an actual embodiment of the essential presence of the Holy Spirit, but only as a symbol and representation of the ineffable affection of the Father for the Son, communicated by the Holy Spirit under the image of a Dove, and accompanied by a voice from heaven declaratory of that affection." Mr. Martin, in his engraving of the Creation of Light, has, in imitation of Raffael, been bold enough to invest the Holy Spirit with human limbs, in the act of moving over Chaos. As with the fiat of his right hand he commands the sun into being, his left hand begets the moon; and the stars are kindled by the inconceivable speed of his progress. The conception is grand and the execution splendid. The principal figure is borrowed, but the excellent disposition of the light and shade, from which it derives so much of its effect, is original. There are many who, with Byron, will consider such an impersonation blasphemous. But Milton most assuredly, of all men, may be readily absolved from any such charge. Audacious his genius was, but pious; bold, but venerative. Whether the person of God be represented in a visible humanity, or his Name be audibly pronounced, the idea is equally embodied. It was a feeling of this which induced the Jew to stand in awe of that Being, and that incommunicable Name, before whom he trembled, and for which his reverence was so profound that he feared to articulate the tremendous word. It might inhabit the heart and mind in hidden sanctity, but to embody it in a sound was profanation. Yet, when celebrating the dispensations of Providence, their psalmists and prophets dared to pronounce it with emphatic repetition. So when a poet or painter, of sufficient powers, applies his genius to the illustration of sacred subjects, he is entitled to all the resources of his art, and to every aid, whether derivable from the imagination or the fancy. Genius is not to be restricted within ordinary limits; of itself it is no profane gift, but it is as holy as the mind of man, which, says writer only less than inspired, is "the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty." The same feeling also has prevented a great poet of our own day from drinking at "Siloa's brook," rather than from the springs of the Arabian desert, or of the waters of the Ganges. Undoubtedly the human intellect, however sublime, should approach with hallowed awe the "invisible things of God;" but still we must not forget that these may be "understood in the things that are made." Genius should not be presumptuous, but neither must it be deprived of its privileges. To mere talent we would forbid much,-but in the higher walks of art only inquire whether the production is one of transcendent genius, and make no rejoinder. For, from a work of genius, a critic must derive his rules of judgment; he has no laws by which he can limit its freedom. He was not originally the law-giver, but the poet-and so must every true poet continue to be. "Pictoribus atque Poetis Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas." There is, however, no necessity for resorting to the scheme of the Humanitarians, in order to render the Deity interesting to Christians. He has manifested himself for us in a human shape, and invested with all those affections which ennoble him in our conceptions, and endear him to our feelings. This will give sufficient license to a poet to venture into the heavens and declare the attributes of Omnipotence. But he must remember that the being of the Father is only visible and audible in the person of the Son. Milton might have been taught this by reference to the 2nd psalm, in which the generation of the Messiah is declared. The decree, however, is reported by himself. It is but one person that speaks throughout, and he says "The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Milton proceeds differently "Thus when in orbs Of circuit inexpressible they stood, By him in bliss embosomed sat the Son, Amidst, as from the flaming mount whose top Brightness had made invisible, thus spake. Hear all ye angels, progeny of light, Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers, This day have I begot, whom I declare On a sedulous perusal of "the Christian Doctrine," it will be found to be the best Commentary on the "Paradise Lost" and "Regained;" but the disagreements between the poet's principles and practice are many, and relate to the more disputable doctrines, on which it is clear his own opinion was much divided, and differed at different periods of his life, and we are inclined to believe subsequently to the composition of that extraordinary treatise. Dr. Channing is in error when he thanks God for having "raised up this illustrious advocate of the long-obscured doctrine of the Divine Unity." Milton, on the contrary, is a determined theist. His system presents a Trinity without a Unity-three Gods, of whom one is supreme, and each substantially distinct from the others. But in "Paradise Lost," we have, at any rate, a modification of this opinion "Beyond compare the Son of God was seen, |