*()90 Notes of the Month on [DEC, 



If ever Right Reverend gentleman has been showered with contempt 

 in all quarters, it is the Right Reverend Henry Philpotts, the new Bishop 

 of Exeter, by the grace of his Highness of Wellington, Ex-Minister. 

 Scorn seems to be poured on this wretched man on all sides. Every 

 man's hand seems to be against him. Sneers and scoffs are his daily bread. 

 He cannot receive a letter without finding himself addressed at the top 

 of it with some of those happy epithets that mankind have contrived 

 for drawing characters as briefly as expressively. He cannot take up 

 a newspaper without finding himself thrown into the most bitter ridi- 

 cule. Much good may it do him. May his perusal of newspapers be 

 always attended with the same balm to his feelings. One of the papers 

 observes : " It seems to be determined by the inhabitants of Exeter to 

 shut up their shops on the entry of the Bishop into that City. Some 

 difficulty has occurred as to a report of the manner in which such a 

 compliment is to be received, unless indeed there should be found one 

 in all the city who shall possess the curiosity of Peeping Tom of Coventry, 

 of olden time. Perhaps, however, the Bishop will previously resign 

 his enormous church preferment, in which case the inhabitants might 

 be induced even to illuminate on his Lordship's entry. Poor Exeter 

 will have had three Bishops within nine months !" 



The Belgian revolution promises to settle for awhile. We promise 

 the friends of tumults that it will be but for awhile ; and we should 

 probably not go too far in promising them the erection of Belgium into 

 an affiliated republic of France, when France shall have eased the 

 Orleans' brow of the pageantry of a crown. 



But for the present the High Allies have taken the Revolution under 

 their care, and De Potter has been prevailed on to withdraw from its 

 councils. This man seems to have been mistaken for a mere newspaper 

 proprietor. He is now mentioned by the Spectator as a Belgian noble- 

 man ; he is a native of Bruges, and his house there would be considered 

 a palace it is certainly equal in all points to Devonshire House. His 

 fortune, for his country, is large ample and, for a single man, would 

 anywhere be thought sufficient. By habit he is a student : his learning 

 is considerable, his application immense. Whether by his study of the 

 history of the Church, or by having fallen upon the works of Bentham, 

 which are well known in Flanders, he has become a thorough theoretical 

 Republican : hating all overweening authority, he would gladly sacri- 

 fice himself and his fortunes all but his old mother to right the cause, 

 not of his country, but his theory. He hates all that is of Nassau, or 

 Nassauish. They have tampered with him, they have coaxed him ; but 

 he has treated with them as sovereign to sovereign, and they, having 

 the power, have beat him. He was beaten dead when the French 

 Revolution broke in upon his chamber, beaming with light his little 

 wretched chamber at the Black Swan at Vales, where the peasants, in 

 secret, came to honour him. Had he been quiet even in Paris, it is 

 possible the Bruxellois might have been cajoled or reduced to order, or 

 by whatever name it be called. When he read the answer to the depu- 

 tation on the part of the King of Holland, he cried out, " Cheatery !" 

 He wrote a letter to the Belgian people, which was conveyed through 

 the medium of the Journal des Tribunaux, exposing the designs of the 

 King, accusing him ofjinesserie, and, in short, predicting precisely that 

 which has happened double-faced cruelty on the part of the Dutch 

 Government. 



