Fraser's Magazine, for June. (Longmans.)—Fraser has an article on "Lord
Macaulay," which, despite the many articles written about him, can still be read with pleasure, both for its matter and its style. It is as just an estimate as an estimate coloured by a faint contempt can be, and con- tains one or two passages which Macaulay himself would have been pleased to write. The essayist, who signs himself "J. A. F.," has the courage to protest against the intellectual cruelty Macaulay showed in refusing to take Montgomery down from the pillory, by excluding the review of his poems from the reviewer's collected works, although en- 'treated by the poor poet himself in the most submissive terms. The remaining papers do not much interest us, with the exception of a severe sketch by Mr. A. J. Wilson, of the financial position of Egypt, showing that as the sale of the land-tax has been stopped, the regular revenue of Egypt cannot in ordinary years exceed £5,000,000; and a most amusing bit of antiquarianism, a sketch of the social life of county Devon, taken from the records of Quarter-Sessions, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. These records incidentally establish the extreme severity of the grievance known as "purveyance," the system of providing for the State's wants by forced contributions in kind. The counties were very wroth with it, though the " fatt oxen and muttons" seized by the pur- veyors were valued only at lid. per lb. for beef and lid. per lb. for mutton. There is a most exhaustive and instructive paper on the "Government of London," from which we quote for the purpose of record the following pregnant paragraph, taken from a painstaking compilation called "Municipal London ":—
" There are 56 separate divisions of the metropolis for the purpose of the Building Acts, 39 for the purposes of local government, 37 for the purposes of Metropolitan Board representation, 30 Poor-law unions and parishes, 28 districts of the superintendent registrar, 21 burial boards, 20 divisions of the police force, 16 school districts, 15 divisions for Militia purposes, 13 county-court districts, 10 School .board divisions, 10 boroughs, 10 gas companies, 10 postal divisions, 8 water companies, and 3 separate county jurisdictions."
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