the vast and fertile regions which he governed from
all contact with European industry and trade, closed
the free navigation of their wondrous rivers, and
laughed at the just demands of foreign creditors
plundered by his merciless dictatorship. Let us see
whether such recollections will now interfere with
his claims as a lion on what is called the fashionable
world, and if the hand of him who so ruthlessly
trampled on human rights will be taken with grasp
more cordial than a man driven to our shores for
his defence of liberty would have any chance in such
quarters of receiving. The question is one of some
interest; because, till the vulgar high world shows
some sense of discrimination in such things, the
vulgar low world will be apt to claim the right to
express its opinion also respecting them; as, on a
memorable occasion two years ago, it did somewhat
roughly. Let us add that such rough demonstrations,
however evil in themselves, are not wholly so in their
results. The single stool which Jenny Geddes flung
with such good aim at the head of Laud's pretended
bishop, finally overthrew the entire Scottish bench
episcopal; and nothing so effectively checked the
march of Puseyism in a certain western diocese of
England, as certain rough movements in its churches
a few years ago not more defensible than old Janet's
in the Scotch kirk of St. Giles.

The wretched gibberings of that half-animate
ghost of the middle ages are not yet however wholly
extinguished. 'Ye Mother Superior,' Miss Sellon, has
very lately again been heard of in the shades of
that charitable little conventual retreat near
Plymouth, where she persists in doing good in her own
very odd and unaccountable way; mixing up real
charity with mock popery, offending the people she
serves by exacting fantastical observances from them,
rioting in ceremonious absurdities, playing the fool
with altars and pictures, prescribing and justifying
confession, ordering such penances to rebellious
"sisters" as that they should make the sign of the
cross on the floor with their tongues, shutting up
obdurate sisters who would not so lick the dust as
an "act of proper self-abasement," and forcing even
Dr. Philpotts at last to withdraw his name from her
establishment as visitor, while he still remains her
"faithful, admiring, and affectionate friend." The
affection of the bishop to ye Mother Superior on this
occasion, appears to be the sort of admiration in
dissension which we have also just been told was wont
to exist between Dr. Pusey and Mr. Ward, when (as
the latter faithful follower of the Pope now confesses)
"at a time when Dr. Pusey knew me to believe that
all sincere Anglicans are bound to labour for the
revival of the Papal supremacy, he told me that such
a belief, though he did not hold it himself, need be no
hindrance to the continuance of my ministrations in
the established Church." Amiable, certainly; though,
for a dignitary holding benefices in the Established
Church, perhaps a little lax. But holding such
opinions, how the good Dr. Pusey must have been
scandalised at the conduct of the Lord Chief Justice
on the home circuit the other day, who, because he
did not himself hold the belief of the Roman Catholic
high sheriff of Buckinghamshire, thought it really
ought to be a hindrance to his own toleration of the
state-attendance and services of the zealous sheriff's
Roman Catholic chaplain.

On that and other circuits the reader will see that
there has been no lack of crime, and less reluctance
than usual in juries to convict in grave cases. It is
doubtful if more than two murderers have escaped in
these Spring Assizes; but it is fortunate that in the
Lewes murder the witnesses were plentiful, for it will
be observed that testimony which might have been
important was refused because of an objection taken
by the judge. A boy of eight years old was thought
not to understand sufficiently the moral obligations
of an oath, because, though he knew it was a wicked
thing to tell a lie, and was aware that something
would be done after they were dead to wicked people
who told lies, he did not know what it was. Now, if
this boy had said that he knew what was done to
such people (which certainly the learned and
conscientious judge would be reluctant himself to say
he knew), the law would have been satisfied, and no
more questions asked; yet because he did not know
how to feign that he did know, he is rejected as
untrustworthy. It is a great pity that ordinary
common sense has not a larger share in governing
such customs of jurisprudence.

It will be observed that by another time-honoured
custom and fiction of law, by which our Chancery
takes care of all property that cannot take care of
itself, the celebrated case of the old lady who has
such a passion for cats is again before the public. It
is not many weeks since Mrs. Cumming, of the mature
age of seventy-six, and with the moderate fortune of
something less than five hundred pounds a-year, was
upon solemn inquisition formally found to be insane.
The object of the inquiry was to take care of her
property. It lasted sixteen days, employed a round
dozen of lawyers, and abstracted from the property
it was so anxious to protect no less a sum than six
thousand pounds. That is, the old lady might have
lived till she was eighty-eight, squandered away every
year insanely every shilling of what she possessed, and
found her property at the end of twelve years
precisely in the exact condition to which it was brought
in sixteen days by the law's tender care for its
preservation. But this is not all. The Lord Chancellor
now discovers, by a recent interview with the old
lady, that her condition is at least sufficiently rational
to justify her in demanding another inquisition. He
expresses no opinion of her competence to spend her
own money, but of her competence to dispute her
own insanity he entertains no doubt whatever.
Another inquiry is therefore ordered, and it is to be
very economical, to save the law from reproach. A
satirical person might remark that economy has
become necessary were it but to save the lawyers
their fees; but it would on every account be well
were occasion taken of this flagrant case to settle
whether the principle of expenditure in future
commissions of lunacy is to be regulated by the chances
of discovering the truth, or to be lavish simply in
proportion to the extent of the estate. There can be
doubt of what custom has hitherto put in practice.

And if custom were ground for continuance, what
chance (to take another and final topic for illustration)
would improved public feeling in the matter of
bribery possess against those supposed interests of
public men and public-house keepers which will soon
be rampant through our towns and counties in all
the saturnalia of a general election? There is
nevertheless nothing more certain than that election
bribery, venerable as prescriptive custom may have
made it, has really of late been falling into disrepute.
The worthy member for the now nearly disfranchised
St. Albans may continue to find food for a joke, in the
not very decent connection which he is not to be
permitted to renew; but that the subject has its gravities
as well as its gaieties, he has also lived to find out. Nor
is there much to discourage the hope which a public
writer lately threw out, that we are at last, by the
progress of ideas, and the diffusion of a somewhat higher
refinement than our house of commons is always able
to represent for us, not unlikely to drift on to the time
when men will bo ashamed, publicly at least, to
parade the vicious advantages they have taken of the
vices of their fellow-men: and when the same public