1827.] T/te Cabinet Novel. 1 6 1 



country ; but he had such a cunning way with him, that his commonest 

 household words would draw down thunders of approbation. One would 

 think that his tongue had been tipped with silver, so brilliant was his 

 fluency, and that it was anointed with honey, so sweet were his accents. 

 This person, who had managed to make fourteen thousand pounds in 

 Portugal in a year, mere truly than will ever be made there again by one 

 man, found himself adulated, homaged, and fawned upon by all ranks, 

 insomuch that there went forth a serious apprehension lest the land should 

 lose its name. 



There was, moreover, a remarkably ticklish subject, which hindered the 

 counsellors from being so unanimous as those could have wished who 

 desired to hold their places in perpetuity ; and according to the well-known 

 language of the press, upon that matter, there was a division in the 

 cabinet.. .. .Before tailors made leather-breeches quite so strong as they 

 do at present some three or four hundred years ago it was a few unfor- 

 tunates, who declined agreeing with the religion of the times, were very 

 improperly destroyed in Smithfield by fire ; and it is not less remarkable 

 than true, that the wisest ministers of Tory Land have ever had this 

 lamentable conflagration before their eyes. The particular religionists who 

 occasioned these burnings, were never since permitted to sit in the great 

 councils of the kingdom ; and whenever it was proposed to allow them 

 that privilege, these ignes fatui were always remembered against them 

 as keenly as though a new faggot pile was in the act of being kindled. 

 The Right Honourable George Thundergust, the last minister spoken 

 of, considered this a very unpleasant and unbecoming prejudice, so 

 much so, that he felt an anxiety to undertake the chief toils of the 

 government himself, in order to promote so laudable an. undertaking. But 

 as it had always been understood, that the minds of all the great officers 

 were quite free upon this question, nothing decisive took place till a very 

 serious illness overcame the chief counsellor, and then it was that the 

 brittleness of the Tory, cabinet became painfully manifest ; indeed, it 

 threatened to shiver in pieces, and then " My native land good 

 night." 



II. 



'' The Dog's a Whig," JOHNSON. 



GEORGE THUNDERGUST solus. 



Most fortunate! let me congratulate myself: but a very few years 

 since and, ray carriages and wine being sold, I was about to try a distant 

 burning clime, where death, in the shape of cholera morbus, might erelong 

 have blasted my condition. Now, to bask in the sunshine of royal favour, 

 the joy of the people, the hope of my country the thought is overpowering. 

 That was a lucky whim which seized poor Derriton, when he pierced his 

 artery ; after that, they could'nt do any thing without me, nor can they now. 

 And whatever the ignorant public or calumniating press may say, I have 

 the merit of consistency. What? at ttye French Revolution did I not 

 write that celebrated sapphic, the Knife Grinder. " Greedy Knife 

 Grinder, whither dost thou wander?" And have I not always set my 

 lace against unsightly inroads on the constitution ? Do I not denounce 

 Parliamentary Reform ? Do J not repel the ridiculous phantaises of 

 ballot arid universal suffrage ? I went to Portugal, and in the moment of 

 her distress, I have moved the mighty legions of my country to her aid ; 



M.M. New Sei-iesVoL. IV. No. 20. Y 



