THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



(Of 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES LETTRES. 

 VOL. X.] NOVEMBER, 1830. [No. 59. 



ENGLAND AND EUROPE IN OCTOBER 1830. 



THOSE who conceived that the close of the French war was the 

 close of the convulsions of Europe, were false prophets. That war closed 

 nothing but the career of Napoleon a mighty man, and a ferocious 

 master of power ; but only a man after all, and perishing by the com- 

 mon course of all conquerors and kings. The impulses of nations are 

 of a higher birth ; they continue long after their apparent authors have 

 passed away ; and Europe will have yet to feel through all her depths, 

 and for many a year, the blows given to her solid frame by the French 

 Revolution. 



The first session of the British Parliament will have opened while 

 these observations are passing through the press; and its deliberations 

 will be probably among the most interesting and characteristic that 

 have occurred since the war. The Duke of Wellington will grasp 

 power with all the activity and keenness of his ambition ; and the strug- 

 gle will be between him and the new generation whom the people have 

 returned on exclusively popular principles. In commanding the whole 

 enormous patronage of Government, he commands a political strength 

 with which no party can compete on the old terms of party ; while 

 the contest lay between Whig and Tory, both dubious of their success, 

 and both wavering in their original creed, the Minister was sure to be 

 triumphant. With place open for the reception of every fugitive, he 

 must have found his ranks recruited with all that could be faithful in 

 party duplicity, and active in zeal that laboured for its hire. No man 

 knows better that in the Commissariat lies the strength of the army, and 

 that the well-fed always have fortune on their side. Opposition starving 

 in its trenches, must soon have been thinned of every man who preferred 

 good quarters to barren Quixotism ; and excepting a few leaders, who 

 dared not go over, through mere shame, or had been too keenly lace- 

 rated to be able to suppress their recollections, the Minister must have 

 had, in a short period, the whole muster-roll of the enemy. 



But he has now to contend with adversaries of another species. A 

 new class and character of hostility is starting up in his front ; and the 

 question will be brought to decision, not between the obsolete and for- 



M.M. New Series. VOL. X. No. 59. 3 R 



