helpless misery; and he resigned himself, if not to sleep, at least to his own meditations. I had the curiosity to listen to "the linen-draper" for about five minutes; but his vulgarisms, his cockneyisms, his inhuman usage of the English language, his barbarous jargon of the counter and the Common Council, his tyrannical caprice in sometimes making w do duty for v, and at others, in making usurp the functions of w, his inordinate affection for the letter h, and, above all, the absolute nothings-the worse than nothings for it was positive balderdash which • he retailed, as he would so many yards of tape at the corner of Bridge Street, Blackfriars-gave me a surfeit, which only the aristocratical atmosphere of the House of Lords, where I speedily took refuge at the foot of the throne, could have effectually relieved.

If we are cursed with many evils -if poverty is laying close siege to the middle and lower ranks of the community-if the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the shipowner, the tradesman, are feelingly convinced that their condition is altered for the worse-if one universal cry of distress resounds through the land-if discontent is growing fast upon unredressed complaints-and if the elements of civil discord are ripening as fast into a state of active revolution, the first explosion of which whenever, wherever, and howsoever it may burst forth, will be the beginning of a struggle which has had no parallel in this countryif, I say, this be our situation, and there are those who think it is-we have at least one consolation. The causes of our evils are nearly as numerous as the evils themselves; and such being the case, we can never be at a loss for a remedy. Lord Stanhope tells us, it is free trade, and nothing else. Lord Carnarvon declares it is the currency. Lord King, monopoly; beer monopoly, sugar monopoly, tea monopoly; and lastly, His Grace of Wellington bids us remember steam and the wet weather!

To say England is already a ruined country, would be the language of imbecility or of faction. She is not in her death-throes. But there is great prostration of strength; an increasing debility in the body politic;

and a morbid lethargy in the national mind, which are prognostics of a sure decay in all the vital energies. These are alarming symptoms, and must have skilful treatment. Prompt and adequate remedies must be applied. We shall then bring to the test this most important question, whether we are suffering under an acute disease, brought on by an improper regimen, and aggravated by empirical nostrums; or whether we are languishing beneath the slow wasting, and consequent decrepitude, which are to conduct us to the euthanasia of our political existence. I believe, and devoutly hope, the former is our true condition. I believe there is a redeeming power in the sanctuary of our constitutional polity, which, as it has stood firm and united, "as rocks resist the billows and the sky," amid the tempests that have so often beaten against it, so will it now stand and survive the shock of this dark hour. I behold in the fabric, no edifice raised by the talisman of the fabulist, or the poet; no structure, rising in splendour, and then vanishing into light air. These are not its foundations; these are not its claims to our homage. I see, in its face and character, the hoar of most venerable antiquity. I trace its origin to the independent and free-born spirit, which pervaded, animated, and ennobled our northern ancestors, magnanimi heroes, who fought the battles, and obtained the triumphs, of British freedom and British glory. I see it, under circumstances the most various, and often the most adverse,-circumstances which seemed to threaten its existence,-now in the dissensions of opposing factions, -now in the extremities of war, civil and religious,-and now in the hostilities of foreign nations, rising to its lofty eminence, protected by wisdom, watchful of its interests, and by patriotism, disdainful of fear in defending them. It is in vain to carry our wishes and expectations beyond the confines of our common nature. Yet, may we not venture to hope, that a system of government so consummate in its integrity, so admirable in the adaptation of its several parts, (composed as it is of various, and sometimes conflicting, elements,) and involving in itself whatever of excellence can be found in the multifarious forms of political

society, shall-under that Providence which seems to have watched over it with peculiar care-so far as perpetuity can be hoped for the works of man, be perpetual? Fruatur sanè istá singulari Dei beneficentiâ, quæ utinam illi sit perpetua!

But, alas! in all former crises of national danger, we had shining lights among us, beacons to warn us of our peril, and guide us through it, to speak comfort, hope, and confidence -men-and what higher praise can I give them?-worthy of their country, and able to defend and support it. Are there any such now? Yes! Where are they? Not where they ought to be; but where the force of circumstances must place them, sooner or later.

The Duke of Wellington is an extraordinary man, and, like every extraordinary man, owes his greatness to what may be called a synchronism of remarkable events. Had there been no French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte would have lived and died, probably, an officer of engineers. Had Napoleon never been Emperor of France, the Honourable Arthur Wellesley would now be only a general, with the colonelcy of a regiment. Were Liverpool, Londonderry, or Canning still alive, his Grace would be suffered to continue of the same opinion he was three years ago, that "he must be mad, to think himself fit for the office of Prime Minister," '—an opinion which every man in the country, who is not mad, (except his Grace,) still entertains. Beyond all comparison, the greatest military commander of this, or perhaps of any other age, he is equally beneath all comparison- -as a statesman. I do not look to the decision with which a thing is done, but to the wisdom in which it is conceived. Arm a man with sufficient power, and what is there he may not do, if the only question that presents itself to his mind, is the extreme point to which power can be pushed? Place a loaded pistol in the hands of a man, and if his only determination is to send the bullet through somebody's head, what head may not become the object of his choice? Between the mere possession of power, however, and the fit application of it, there is as broad a distinction, as between the possession of a right, and the expediency of enforcing it. What greater

his

power, for example, had the Duke of Wellington than Mr Pitt, Mr Perceval, Lord Liverpool, or Mr Canning, for breaking in upon the constitution? None. The difference lay in the hands that wielded it. They had minds capacious enough to see all the bearings and dependencies of the measure, and wisdom enough to abjure it. The Duke of Wellington, whatever may be his sagacity or wisdom, had only firmness enough to carry it. I concede to him all the merit, such as it is, which belongs to his firmness, as I would all the glory due to a man who jumped off the Monument, to shew he was not afraid of dashing himself to pieces. But in both cases, preserve to myself the right of entertaining exceedingly grave doubts as to the discretion of either of the parties.

These military qualities, however, of decision or promptitude, of inflexibility of purpose, and of resolute execution, are the exclusive themes of eulogy with his Grace's panegyrists; as if the Council Chamber were a camp, Downing Street a garrison, and King, Lords, and Commons, the centre and two wings of an army taking up positions for battle. Obedience, slavish, unreasonable obedience, is the first duty of a soldier; and the rigorous, unquestioned exaction of it, the paramount necessity with a commander-in-chief. There must be but one will in the field, and that will (if I may so express myself without profanity) as omnipotent, as irresistible, as the Deity's. But it is at least a novelty in England, to hear these martial virtues trumpeted forth as the distinguishing perfections of a Prime Minister. It is not less a novel-. ty in this country, to find the truncheon of a Field Marshal, and the sword and epaulettes of Generals and Major-Generals, recognised as talismanic qualifications for Cabinet Ministers. Do I say, therefore, that because a man has proved himself an able soldier, he proves himself, ipso facto, unfit to be any thing but a soldier? No. But I do say, the science of civil polity is not learned by the same studies that make a proficient in the science of fortification. I do say, that a profound knowledge of the commercial interests of a great commercial country, is not obtained while acquiring the practical art of gunnery, that an intimate acquaintance with domestic affairs cannot be

cultivated abroad, amid battles and sieges, that a deep study of the intricate relations which subsist between trade, agriculture, and manufactures, cannot be prosecuted in conjunction with the discharge of garrison duties, that elaborate and comprehensive researches into the complicated questions of our Colonial policy cannot be made while marching and counter-marching,-that the diplomatic mysteries of the Foreign Office (for it has its mysteries) cannot be explored while manoeuvring a squadron of dragoons,-and lastlybut above all-that the school for studying the principles of the British constitution, is not that where the articles of war are used as a text book. England is not a stratocracy yet, ours is not yet a purely military government -we are not yet ruled by soldiers only -and until we are, I must continue to think that the system of training, which gave us our Burleighs, our Clarendons, our Walpoles, our Chathams, our Pitts, our Liverpools, and our Cannings, better adapted for producing STATESMEN, than that which qualifies a man to take precedency at the War Office or the Horse Guards.

But to return to his Grace of Wellington. I cannot trust myself to describe what were my feelings, as I listened to him this evening. It was a humiliating exhibition, to be made by such a man, whose fame, and character, and glory, are part and parcel of the fame, and character, and glory of his country. He is so little of an orator, or a rhetorician, (arts not altogether without their use in a popular form of government, where eloquence does much when it can give ennobling form and impression to the dictates of an enlarged mind,) that he might have said with Othello,

"Rude am I in speech,

And little bless'd with the set phrase of peace;

And therefore little shall I grace my cause In speaking for myself."

Or with Mark Antony;

"I am no orator, as Brutus is, But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man." His Grace, too, is as little of a dialectician as he is an orator. He is either incapable, or disdainful, of following the simplest argument to its legitimate conclusions from assumed or admitted premises. I appeal to all his reported speeches, as my

vouchers for this opinion; and I express the opinion without the most remote intention of conveying an imputation derogatory to his intellectual character. I am willing to believe, that his Grace is one of those men who can think strongly and acutely, but who have not the power of marshalling their thoughts, so as to produce them in the fair array of words, and in the consecutive order of accurate ratiocination. I will even concede, what I should find it difficult to prove, that his Grace's assertions are all incontrovertible truths. Still, the abrupt, dry, naked, and dogmatical mode of their enunciation, would not be the less repulsive, or the less adapted to produce conviction, which must be the first aim of every orator. Self-evident propositions may be delivered with as much oracular brevity as the speaker may choose to employ: but disputed ones, which are upon their trial, as it were, must shew cause, produce good evidence, and establish strong facts, in their own favour. I have no doubt his Grace does reason; and that he arrives at his postulata by a process which Aristotle or Malebranche, Locke or Condillac, could hardly improve.

The entire absence, however, of all testimony that he does so, in his speeches, would almost lead one to suppose that some of his colleagues reasoned for him, and furnished him afterwards with the affirmative or negative results; as a treasury clerk might be employed to cover a quire of paper with calculations upon the revenue, and jot down the totals upon a gilt-edged card, which his Grace could carry in his waistcoat pocket to enlighten their Lordships upon the state of our finances.

It is so, because it is so, or because I know it to be so, constitutes the prompt, decisive, and resolute character" of his Grace's arguments. I will not call this imperious style (as if the teacher or the doctrine were infallible,) dogmatical; for dogmatism is very often only the energy of a superior mind, which, by its gigantic faculties perceives at once the conclusions to which the disputants must come; and is the spring of a tiger compared with the motion of a tortoise. tortoise. Neither will I impute it to arrogance, though certainly to that offensive quality it bears the

strongest resemblance. I think it may be traced, easily enough, to two very obvious causes: his Grace's military education and career, more accustomed, all his life, to give orders than to give reasons for them; and the somewhat late period at which he found himself in a situation requiring the knowledge of an art, in which, though nature can only enable us to excel, early and assiduous practice will do enough, for all the common purposes of business. Men at sixty do not become orators, because they happen to become Prime Ministers; but Prime Ministers, nevertheless, ought to be, if not orators, at least decent debaters. And they ought to be capable, when the nation is groaning under severe and general (not partial) distress; when every class of the community complains; and when every landlord, to secure a part of his rent, is compelled to indulge in the amiable philanthropy of generously relinquish ing his claim to the rest; they ought, methinks, to be capable of taking rather a more statesman-like view of the question, than is comprised in assuring us, as the Duke of Wellington has this evening, that people build fine new houses, and therefore distress cannot be so great; that people get something for their labour, and therefore they cannot be so bad off; that people do not, to be sure, get a guinea, as they used to do, but they get a shilling, and therefore they need not complain; and that we must be going on well, because as much is paid in the shape of taxes, by the consumers, in 1830, as in 1815; increase of population during that period, and the addition of mouths by the disbanding, at home, of a large army and navy, being circumstances of too trivial a nature to affect this brilliant discovery.

I have been told by several of my parliamentary friends, that Mr Peel, since he exchanged the proud honour of representing the University of Oxford, for a seat in the House, as the nominee of Sir Manasseh Lopez, is quite an altered man; and I can well believe it. Whether, however, such be really the case, or that I only thought he looked like one forsaken by that intrepidity of spirit, and that sanctity of honesty, which once supported and exalted him, while pur

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suing temperately, yet inflexibly, through all difficulty and all danger, the path of severest duty, I know not. "Il me semble," observes Montesquieu, que nous ne jugeons jamais des choses, que par un retour secret que nous faisons sur nous mêmes." It might, therefore, be merely the reflection of what I should have felt myself, " had I so sworn," and then been so forsworn; of what my own opinion of myself would have been, standing in that same assembly, a recreant, where so oft I had proved myself a champion, that made me fancy, while he spoke, I could discern the workings of a fallen nature, conscious of having erred, without having ceased to respect virtue and goodness. It is not at the moment we commit a wrong, but when we recall it, (for the remembrance never dies,) that we are tormented. Mr Peel must know, and knowing, he must feel, and in that feeling he must for ever stand rebuked, that he cannot now address any hundred members of the House of Commons, without awakening silent scorn, in those he has betrayed, and a pity, nearly allied to contempt, in those who have had the benefit of his treachery. He cannot look round upon the former, and not see their eyes turned upon himself with an expression of disdain, such as might blanch the cheek of the most intrepid scorner of the world's opinion that ever strove to outface indignities, which a craven conscienco told him he deserved. He cannot carry his appeal to the latter, and not shrink with self-loathing from their tainted charity; from the cold, and heartless, and distrustful countenance, which welcomes him whose apostacy is his only covenant; and who, while he is used as a friend, is suspected as one who may become an enemy. This is the political condition of the Right Honourable Gentleman in the House of Commons; and all he has to counterbalance its deep humiliation, are the worthless applauses of a few parasites and sycophants, who extol the sacrifices he has made as a signal act of patriotic virtue. If I know any thing of human nature, however, or if they who best know Robert Peel speak of him as he is, he is the last man breathing to extract an honourable consolation, or a dignified acquittal, from such compurgators.

The effect of this altered position in the estimation of himself, of the House, and of the country, was surely apparent in the general tone of his speech this evening. It was the harangue of a man who knew what reproaches might be dashed in his face, if he presumed to taunt or irritate an opponent; of a man who felt he had lost his personal influence, the influence of character, and had nothing to sustain him but the courtesy due to his official station, and the respect which etiquette assigns to the acknowledged Ministerial leader, or organ of Government in the House. -Hence the gossamer touches of raillery and sarcasm with which he commences, in allusion to his Right Hon. friend, Mr Huskisson, who, if the face be any index to the mind, shewed, by the sneer which dwelt upon his features, that he duly appreciated the reasons which made his Right Hon. Friend " willing to wound," but yet" afraid to strike." Hence, too, his tame, spiritless, and beseeching entreaties, that they would be kind enough to vote for the Address, and not depart from the good old practice, by tacking an unpalatable amendment to it. Why, in his better days, in his palmy state, he would have talked to them of the indecency, of the indignity, of carrying up an Address to the throne, which, by negativing the language of the Speech, was, in effect, imputing falsehood to the Sovereign. He, or any Minister in his situation as a Minister, and not checked in the free current of his thoughts by any galling consciousness of vulnerable points, would not have sued and entreated, but fearlessly have described the real character of an amendment, or counter-address, as a proceeding which not only went to proclaim His Majesty's gracious Speech a false representation of the state of the country, and that they, the addressers, had found it necessary to draw up a true one, but to call upon his Majesty to dismiss from his confidence those servants, by whose advice he had been betrayed into an act so derogatory to his royal dignity. Instead of this plain, manly, straight-forward, and constitutional course, the Right Honourable Gentleman says this: "With respect to the amendment, I earnestly expect the House to consider whether the circumstances of

the country are such as to render it necessary, on this occasion, for them to depart from the course which has been followed for a long series of years, on the first day of each Session. For at least thirty years, ever since they had been an Imperial Parliament, there had never been such an amendment proposed. (Heré there were cries of No, no, from several members, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I think, put his Right Hon. friend right.) I feel great pleasure in correcting my assertion. I meant to say, no such amendment had been carried. I do not mean to make any wilful misrepresentation to the House; but I mean, that no such amendment had been carried. For nineteen years out of that thirty, no amendment had been proposed.'

Shades

Is it possible to conceive any thing more inoffensive, more well-behaved than this?" I entreat,” and “I feel great pleasure in being corrected;" and "I do not mean to make any wilful misrepresentation!" of Pitt, of Perceval, of Londonderry, of Canning! Oh that ye could speak, and tell the world how you would have addressed a House of Commons on such a subject! though the gauntlet you threw down was to be picked up by a Fox, a Burke, a Windham, a Sheridan, a Romilly, a Horner, a Grattan, a Ponsonby, a Whitbread, a Plunkett, aye,—and in those times, a Brougham! I might even evoke from his living tomb, the Right Honourable Robert Peel, who was Member for the University of Oxford, and ask him if he would have carried himself as the Right Honourable Robert Peel, who is Member for Westbury, does?

Mr Edward Davenport made a statement this evening, which, if it be correct, or approaching to it even, (for a trivial inaccuracy affects it no more than a technical informality in an indictment purges the criminal, though it may let the crime go unpunished,) shews how profligately titles have been lavished during the last seventy years. I say profligately, because the fact itself is a denial of the probability that they can have been honestly deserved or bestowed. "Lord Bacon," said Mr Davenport, "has observed, that a country which wished to become great, must take care not to let the gentry increase, since it must follow as a natural con