572 NOTES AND EVENTS OF THE MONTH. 



rate of posting of any potentate's courier in Europe ! And in the same 

 breath that these simple, spluttering bodies give vent to their gratitude 

 for the mighty achievement, they seek to throw odium on his Lordship 

 for the crime of being personally little ! O'Connell is abused for being 

 big ; Lord John for being little ; the other leading liberals for being 

 neither good taste, sound argument, and irrefragable proofs of the po- 

 litical incompetency of the Whigs ! 



Lord John Russell makes no pretensions to oratory, but there is, ne- 

 vertheless, an eloquence in all his speeches more commanding, and every 

 way more influential, than all the Tamworth flourishes put together ; it 

 is the eloquence of practical common sense, addressed to a reasoning and 

 matter-of-fact people, who want not their ears tickled, but their minds 

 rationally satisfied ; and this his Lordship accomplishes without the aid 

 of florid fustian, or a tissue of jingling, carefully-cropped, words meaning 

 this, that, or any thing, according to the listener's construction. His 

 speeches are unmistakeable, plain, straightforward, English declarations, 

 which every body can understand and every body likes except the cor- 

 ruptionists, of course. Let any impartial man read over the speech of 

 Sir William Follett at Exeter, and contrast with it that of Lord John 

 Russell at Clifton : in the one he shall have an able, well-digested, 

 subtle, and lawyer-like piece of declamation, generally condemnatory of 

 the shocking Whigs ; in the other, a masterly exposition of the plans of 

 government for the welfare of the people, and a calm denial of dishonesty 

 which carries conviction to every unperverted mind. Apart from the 

 speakers as individuals, which address do the people care most about 

 that which gave another " lift" to a rising orator, or that which gave 

 confidence to the country ? 



RAPHAEL'S CARTOON. The grand painting in distemper (not by our an- 

 cient friend Urbino, but by a redoubtable namesake of his) has excited the 

 liveliest attention of the political critics, who, ever since its first exhibi- 

 tion, have been canvassing its design, grouping, colouring, general com- 

 position, and effect, with an avidity proportioned to the interest and 

 a skilfulness equal to both. Any work on such a subject could provoke no 

 less at any time ; but at the present, sated as the public mind is with 

 full-lengths, half-lengths, kit-cats, caricatures, portraits, and limnings of 

 the trite studies which have so long engaged the genius of our politico- 

 literary artists, the subject of the new cartoon, were it only for its novelty, 

 was sure to command a large measure of speculation and some gratitude. 



The picture has been criticised, of course, according to the peculiar 

 bias which elementary education has imparted : those of the Whig 

 school of painting seeing little in it to challenge particular investigation, 

 whilst those of the Tory school, on the contrary, profess to discover in 

 the work, its details, handling, tone, perspective, and distribution of 

 shade, much to engage a rigorous and elaborate notice. The artist has 

 certainly treated his subject with some skill. The event portrayed is 

 apocryphal, and he has therefore judiciously sketched in the principal 

 figure with an indistinctness of outline that leaves much to the imagina- 

 tion of the beholder. Though it occupies, necessarily, the foreground, 

 yet the light thrown upon it is subdued and misty to a fault ; the cir- 

 cumjacent accessories, to be sure, are so arranged as to give a truculent 



