THE LATE AND PRESENT MINISTRY. 123 



ordinary act of burning York Minster. The noble Viscount,, now 

 first Lord of the Treasury, ceased to be an every-day lord by an act 

 of more than lordly folly. Lord Melbourne is the never-to-be-for- 

 gotten victim of the never-to-be-forgotten triumph of Coldbath Fields. 

 He it was who charged the breechless soldiery of the rebel hosts, 

 on the plains of Calthorpe ; overcame the redoubtable legions of un- 

 armed vagabonds ; broke through the vanguard of old women and 

 children ; dispersed the light squadrons of shirtless boys and hoary- 

 headed old men ; and finally routed the main body of the deaf, the 

 decrepid, the halt, and the blind. He it was who out-Hannibal'd the 

 conqueror of Cannee, in planning and executing the masterly strata- 

 gem of capturing the six atrocious conspirators, who were preparing 

 to dethrone and behead the king, and seize the empire, and had all 

 but effected their traitorous purpose, when Lord Melbourne caught 



the sanguinary wretches in the very act of playing at soldiers 



with wooden swords in a hay-loft. He it was who permitted the 

 amiable Mr. Laing, of police-office renown, to exhibit his benignant 

 mercies to the many villains guilty of being found too poor to indulge 

 in feather beds. He it was who turned poor foolish Collins, the old 

 man-of-war's-man, into a Bonaparte, and shipped him to Port Jack- 

 son for the safety of Great Britain : and to him are we indebted for 

 preserving us from the horrors of revolution. But we have done; 

 Surely we have enumerated more than enough to satisfy the most 

 sceptical as to Lord Melbourne's claim to take the lead in public 

 affairs ; or, may it not be reasonably supposed, that the man who 

 with a detachment of marines could effect half the glories that we. 

 have detailed, must, with the resources of the whole fleet at his back, 

 do something of a magnitude corresponding with his already well- 

 earned renown ? Though we are far from presuming that our readers 

 are ignorant of the fact, it may not be altogether out of place, to re- 

 mind them, that all the peers in Earl Grey's cabinet (Lord Melbourne 

 among the rest) were of decided opinion, that without the Coercion 

 Bill, as it last passed Parliament, the tranquillity of his Majesty's do- 

 minions could not be preserved. But no sooner is the noble Viscount 

 entrusted with the seals of office, than he runs down to the House of 

 Lords, and declares that the three obnoxious clauses of the bill is to be 

 forthwith rescinded in fact, the whole bill given up, and an emascu- 

 lated one, by way of excuse, to be introduced Jirst into the lower 

 house. So completely does this proceeding satisfy Mr. O'Connell and 

 his Irish fraternity of M.P.s, that he declared, the very night the an- 

 nouncement was made in the Commons, that he was well pleased with 

 the alterations. Here, then, is a complete empaling of principle upon 

 the horns of a most untoward dilemma ; here is a Scylla and Chary b- 

 dis, a frying-pan-and-fire sort of alternative. The bill of last session 

 could not be carried, that's certain ; for the attempt ruined the old 

 cabinet, with a much greater man than Lord Melbourne at its head. 

 What then becomes of his Majesty's dominions? shared, of course, 

 among the agitators, or there is no truth in Lord Melbourne's asser- 

 tions. We should be most happy to hear those paradoxes reconciled 

 with common sense ; but we suppose that the riddle is resolved by 

 the application of the old motto of the optimists whatever is, is best. 



