100 Notes ffthe Month [JULY, 



with great delicacy and kindness on this momentous and perilous occa- 

 sion. Various reasons have been alleged for his Majesty's displeasure, 

 but the report of its having been caused by the flippancy of tongue 

 often noticed in a certain lady, is not true." 



So says the " Lancet," and its saying has gone the round of the news- 

 papers. We acknowledge that we must believe it to have been misin- 

 formed. Yet if the news be true we cannot understand how the matter 

 should escape investigation. It would leave the country dependant on 

 the opinion of a single physician for the most important interests that 

 Could affect it the health of its king. We of course have no idea that if 

 any one man were to be confided in on such occasions, Sir Henry Hal- 

 ford would not deserve as full confidence as any of his compeers. But 

 still we have no right to run risks, and the possibility of a dangerous 

 precedent ought to be avoided as much as its reality. The King's whole 

 illness had undoubtedly been a curious example of the dexterity of 

 court language. The bulletins were mere variations of the same language, 

 day by day. To this moment nobody outside the palace or the cabinet 

 knows the exact nature of the royal illness, for the bulletins and the private 

 accounts were in perpetual contradiction. The physicians say one thing, 

 the ministers another, the attendants whisper another ; the newspapers 

 combining the stories of all make another addition to the public per- 

 plexity. In the mean time, the only fact that transpired amidst this 

 confusion and racing of couriers between Downing Street and Windsor, 

 is that the King did not get better. And on this w r e had a pure prac- 

 tical comment in the courtly baseness of some of our fashionable names. 

 These people were already dropping their cards at Bushy Park in pro- 

 fusion ; discovering that the Clarence portion of man and womankind 

 are every thing that is kingly, queenly, and so forth, and already com- 

 mencing that system of contemptible and shameless prostration to the 

 heir apparent, which on the same terms they would offer to Beelzebub. 



" The Swiss Cantons, according to the last census, contain a popula- 

 tion of very nearly 2,000,000. The federal military contingent consists of 

 33,758 men, with a reserve of double that amount, and the armed land- 

 weyr consist of 140,000; forming a total of 207,618 men, exclusive of 

 the federal staff. The Swiss troops in the service of foreign powers, but 

 subject to be recalled should their country be engaged in war, amount 

 to 18,136 men. It is observed by a French Journalist, that if France 

 could adopt the military organization of Switzerland, she might have, 

 at an expense not exceeding 30,000,000 francs, a disposable force of more 

 than 500,000 men, and a reserve of the same amount, and a national 

 guard army of 2,200,000 men." 



All our romancers lavish all their eloquence on the Swiss. Simplicity, 

 modesty, independence, and pastoral scorn of the gross pursuits of 

 worldly gain, an Alpine Arcadia, make up but a water- coloured portrai- 

 ture of the blissful population of the land of Tell. Yet in all ages the 

 Swiss have been notorious for their passion for lucre. In all ages they have 

 been the disturbers of the neighbouring countries, and in all ages have 

 been guilty of the enormous baseness and crime of hiring out their 

 soldiery to execute the rapine and murders of foreign nations. For 

 shedding the blood of a fellow creature there can be but one excuse 

 self-defence. The Swiss, defending his own country, is a patriot, but 

 fighting the battles of France, or any other stranger, for his pay, is a mur- 



