THE

MONTHLY CHRONICLE;

NATIONAL JOURNAL

OR

Politics, Literature, Science, and Art,

VOL. V.
JANUARY—JUNE, 1840.

LONDON: LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,

PATERNOSTER-ROW

CONTENTS OF VOL. V.

THE

MONTHLY CHRONICLE.

THE COMING SESSION.

er. The pan more apparenarked as yet ament

The unprofitable results of the two last sessions of Parliament cause many to look forward with despondency to that which is about to commence. We are not of the number. The pause of a few years in the onward progress of national improvement has been more apparent than real. The reign of our youthful Sovereign, it is true, has been unmarked as yet by any of those events, which, like Catholic Emancipation, Reform of Parliament, or Abolition of Slavery, form eras in the history of a people; but the popular energy which achieved those peaceful triumphs remains unimpaired, and whenever it shall be awakened to renewed activity, it will walk forth with a power strengthened by repose, and will be prepared to act with a vigour immeasurably beyond any that it has yet displayed. Even the last six months have done much to advance the cause of Reform. The explosion of Chartism on the Welsh border will go far to dispel the fatal illusion that lately kept the labouring classes aloof from those of their fellow-sufferers, by whom alone social improvements can ever be enforced; and the bloodshed so wantonly provoked at Newport will not have been unattended by some beneficial consequences, if it should lead to the abandonment of those visionary schemes of reform, which never could have been realised, but the too eager pursuit of which might easily have led to the reinstatement of that party, whose only principle of government has invariably been the reduction of civil and religious liberty within the narrowest bounds.

There have been governments in England that would have made the late mournful event in Monmouthshire a pretext for the curtailment of popular rights. We have no such apprehension at present; and therefore, while we grieve for the melancholy fate of those whom their mistaken zeal has hurried into destruction, we know the full extent of the evil, and can derive comfort from the confident hope, that the sacrifice will probably lead to the dissolution of that unfortunate confederacy which has done more to revive the hopes of Toryism than any single event that has occurred within the last ten years.

We think we perceive many symptoms of an improved feeling among the working classes. They are beginning, or we are much mistaken, to become aware of the fraud that has been practised on them by those whose tools they have allowed themselves to be made; and should the dissension which has prevailed among Reformers during the last two or three years, give way speedily to any thing like a real union, we may rest assured that the coming session will not be found barren of most gratifying results.

Among the most important manifestations of the last few months, we should be disposed to name the complete disclosure of the character and de

VOL. V.