THE LATE AND PRESENT MINISTRY. 



" ON their own merits," says Panglos, " modest men are dumb -" 

 and the doctor does not possess a sincerer subscriber to his eloquently 

 humble aphorism than we of the " Monthly Magazine." He must 

 be a very indifferent observer of the progress of public events, who is 

 unable to perceive, that, no sooner does an astounding occurrence in 

 state affairs take place, than the spirit of prophecy instantaneously 

 descends upon those who have the means of making their voices 

 heard. The accuracy with which our brethren of the daily and 

 weekly press have predicted the downfall of the Grey administration, 

 after the premier had dissolved the cabinet, is absolutely amazing. 

 Accordingly we find self-gratulatory eulogiums after the following 

 fashion : as " Things have occurred just as we expected," a We 

 find that our silent, but anxious anticipations on this head have been 

 realized to the letter," " No one can now be ignorant, that affairs 

 must have turned out as they have ;" and such like. Now, this sort 

 of proceeding completely divests us of our constitutional apathy to 

 egotism. How far we are amenable for falling into the error we de- 

 nounce, may be gathered from a solitary fact. We beg to refer the 

 reader to our last " Note of the Month," for July, entitled " Peaceful 

 Commotion." Not to disturb him in his chair, we take the liberty of 

 quoting it, or rather that portion immediately relative to the present 

 question. 



" Ireland has been the bitter drop in the cup of successive admi- 

 nistrations, and has been the ruin of this. Thus are the wrongs of 

 that unfortunate scape-goat of doating and empirical statesmen 

 made the avepgers of themselves. The Grey cabinet never can carry 

 a motion for the renewal of the Coercion Bill, and certainly cannot hold 

 office if that question be mooted at all. Success is out of the most san- 

 guine hope of their most degraded followers ; and failure entails un- 

 avoidable resignation" The question of the Irish Coercion Bill was 

 mooted the parties so doing were ruined by it ; and the conse- 

 quences are before us. Whatever may have been the merits of the 

 late administration, this is certain that they who do not regard its- 

 overthrow with indifference, do with pleasure ; and those two parties 

 comprise the entire nation. The few, the very few, who regret its 

 dissolution, are in numbers and talent any thing but respectable. 

 The secret of its existing so long, is solely attributable to the fact 

 that all but the Tories were aware of the difficulty, the almost 

 impossibility, of its place being efficiently supplied. Nearly all were 

 unanimous in loudly decrying its enactments, and its attempts at 

 enactments. However loath to admit it, all felt that they were ob- 

 liged to tolerate that which they could not improve ; for it is not less 

 humiliating than true, that talent was never a scarcer commodity 

 among the aristocracy than at the present moment ; and in the state 

 in which society now is, it is the aristocracy to whom we must look 

 for legislators, and for the formation of legislators. We feel not the 



