1831.] Affairs in General. 665 



have ; which will be buried in a yearly bundle of the most trifling or 

 the dullest essays that ever encumbered the dustiest shelves of a library ; 

 and which, in nine instances out of ten, are mere rechauffes of some 

 obsolete essay in the same volumes, or the unacknowledged plunder of 

 some foreign miscellany. The truth is, that the Royal Society, at least, 

 wants a reform, and it could not give a better symptom of its new 

 energies, than by giving up its squabbles, and assisting the discoveries 

 of industry and genius wherever it found them. 



What extravagance of imagination can be surpassed by the reality 

 that meets us in the common course of life ? If there be an instinctive 

 feeling in man, it is the shrinking from the sight of death, and especially 

 of death with pain, and most of all, of death inflicted by cruel, violent, 

 and treacherous means. Yet what wild fancy of the poet, or what sullen 

 frenzy of the mind, loving to invent abhorrent conceptions, could equal 

 the following statement : — " We perceive in a Paris paper, an account 

 of the execution of a French woman at Bremen, who was guillotined on 

 the 3d ult., for administering arsenic to thirty-two persons, fifteen of 

 whom died. At her trial, when called upon for her defence, she stated 

 that her principal motive in sending so many human beings to their 

 ' great account,' arose from ' the pleasure she experienced in beholding 

 the operation o? poison.' " 



The Burking system, which is unhappily placed beyond doubt in this 

 country, renders it impossible to doubt of any atrocity that can be sug- 

 gested by the love of gain. But horrible as it is, it must yield to the 

 hideous confirmation of mind, which could delight in wholesale murder 

 for the murder's sake. The growth of crime, has been, in all nations, 

 a warning of national decay ; but when crimes that startle nature, and 

 make us ask whether they are the work of man or of fiends, thus burst 

 upon the public eye, we are forced to fear for the sudden overthrow of 

 the land ; they look too like evidences that the moral frame is on the 

 very eve of dissolution ; they are the spots which indicate that final 

 corruption has already begun. 



The " Northern Whig," a dashing paper of the north of Ireland, 

 which is " not particular to a shade," and makes the most of every thing 

 that comes in its way, has published the following notices from one of 

 the clergy. If authentic, they are certainly odd documents enough. 



"The Rev. Dr. Hincks, of Killileagh, has posted (in Killileagh) a notice that 

 on a certain day there will be attendance at the glebe-house, to receive tithe. 

 Appended to this is what the Rev. Dr. styles a 



' PARTICULAR NOTICE. 



'As this is, not improbably, the last year that Dr. Hincks will have to re- 

 ceive tithe, and as the indulgence he has formerly granted has been much 

 abused, he hereby gives notice, that, in case the tithe shall not be paid on one 

 of the above days, proceedings, both unpleasant and expensive, will be taken 

 to enforce payment.' " 



Does the Dr. mean by this farewell menace, that he is to give up his 

 living, give up his country, or fairly give up the ghost } The Northern 

 Whig remarks upon it — 



" We have much gratification in publishing the letter. It is a good omen 

 to see the tithe-eaters taking the alarm, and it is not less so to see the 

 M.ar. New Series,— \oi.. XII. No.72. 3 F 



