328 Notes of the Month on [SEPT. 



answerable evidence of his fitness for every employment under the 

 sun. 



But this parliament has passed away. It is in its grave, and we desire 

 never to see its revival in spirit any more than in substance. 



The voice of the nation has been raised in one indignant outcry against 

 the expenses of the state, against the sinecures, the pensions, the super- 

 numerary places, the enormous military establishment, and the whole 

 cumbrous frippery of the Horse-Guards' administration. 



At some time or other we shall come to the detail of those scandals ; 

 but the nation has clearly determined to give its confidence to no man 

 who will not pledge himself that those abominations shall be extinguished. 

 Sir James Graham's speeches have only embodied the public scorn and 

 disgust. The feeling existed long before. The pledge universally de- 

 manded at the elections was, will you put down the sinecures ? will 

 you set your face against the jobs ? will you dock the ruinous salaries ? 

 will you insist on knowing why the Privy Council are entitled to pay 

 themselves upwards of half a million a year out of the public pocket, or 

 5,000/. a year a piece ? Will you extinguish every thing in the shape 

 of political buying and selling, and the transformation of the House of the 

 Constitution into a den of thieves ? They did not think it worth their 

 while to ask them on what side of the house they intended to take post ; 

 but the point was this, wherever they sat, they must sit as the represen- 

 tatives of the people, not as the slaves of my lord secretary this, or my 

 lord viscount the other. We shall see whether the new members keep 

 their words. If they do, the country will escape a convulsion : if they 

 do not, they at least will be overwhelmed ; scorn will pursue them at 

 every step, and on the first opportunity they will be flung out into dis- 

 grace and ignominy for ever. So be it. 



Our women are all heroines now ; the newspapers say, that Lady 

 Harcourt, whose noble husband could hardly have been consigned to 

 the earth when the late king was buried, sent for twelve tickets to St. 

 George's chapel. A snug funeral party this. Of course they all got 

 tickets, and were well entertained. No doubt her ladyship was very 

 much at her ease, and has continued so ever since. 



Yet it is not so much by women of rank, who are bred up to this stony- 

 heartedness as a part of their education, and think much the same of a 

 dead husband as of a cast-off gown, that our indignation has been excited 

 of late. It is with the " weeping widows/" the " undone and bereaved 

 of all their souls held dear/' the walking hearses of a husband's beloved 

 memory, black and tragic from top to toe the writing widows those 

 sorrowing authoresses, who, in insatiable fondness for the dear dead-and- 

 gone, and " in a holy desire to give the world some knowledge of the 

 virtues and various perfections of him whom they shall never cease to 

 deplore, whose image they treasure in their heart of hearts, and whom 

 they day and night implore heaven that they may soon rejoin in the 

 grave ;" make books and sell them for the highest price they can get ; 

 bolstered up by puffery of all kinds, demands on the " recollections of 

 college friends," or " the sympathy of sorrowing relations/' and on the 

 humbugability of the public in general. Those are the true Widow 

 of Ephesus tribe, and, we will confess, it would not seriously afflict 

 our souls to see them thrown into public scorn, or hear the first appli- 

 cation for assistance, the first pretty presentation of the prospectus of 

 " The Recollections and Remains of the late lamented Honourable and 



