92 NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



MYSTERIOUS DOINGS. If doing everything different from every 

 body else, similarly situated, give the political hybrids now in office 

 any claims to the name of Reformers, they are entitled to that ap- 

 pellation. Times were when it was customary for Cabinet chief- 

 tians to act unlike the animal described by naturalists, which kicks 

 up a dust to conceal its manoeuvres. Now the fashion is for the 

 underlings to create such a (f smother," that there is no making out 

 what their masters are at. Instead of the doings of State Secreta- 

 ries being minutely registered, as of old, in the Court Circulars, these 

 delectable organs of official gossip religiously eschewed all mention 

 of late proceedings in high places until farther concealment was im- 

 practicable. True, we were presented with the interesting fact, that 

 the Mastership of the Buck-hounds was transferred from the Earl 

 of Litchfield to the Earl of Chesterfield ; and also that Mr. Henry 

 Hunt had an interview at the Home-office with the Shamrock 

 Duke, who had the three seals dangling at his own watch-fob. 

 Who would have believed, two months since, that the Keeper of the 

 Kennel and Peterloo Martyrs would now be chronicled by Court 

 newsmen, and the glories of Tory placemen unsung ? We would utter 

 for the Duke the Eastern benison "May his condescension never be 

 less" but that such others have shared that novel amiability in his 

 Grace as to render the honour awarded to the Preston demagogue 

 anything but dubious. 



PUZZLES FOB THE HOLIDAYS. Puzzles are peculiarly appropri- 

 ate to this period of the year, and therefore we beg to submit the 

 following by way of a Christmas poser : 



What name, of all others, in the history of this great country, can 

 soonest summon the blush of virtuous shame into an Englishman's 

 face? What name is the .bitterest existing memento of a faction, in 

 whose political career the contraction of an unpayable debt of hun- 

 dreds of millions sterling was one of the least repulsive features 

 under whose auspices, despotism, turpitude, and warfare flourished 

 abroad, and corruption and the Six Acts at home? What name 

 most readily suggests recollections inimical to the reputation of the 

 present possessors of power, that recalls to mind who were the coad- 

 jtitators of men who would forbid their fellow-men to think, and 

 that begets notions of quondam times which must act on the indig- 

 nation of the honest as firebrands on gunpowder ? Finally : What 

 name most speedily demolishes the sophistry of the jargon, that calls 

 midnight noon-day ; bids us extract blood from a flint ; and tells us 

 to hope for liberality from a Government of which the Duke of Wel- 

 lington is virtually the head ? 



POETICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. The Tories have a fashion of illus- 

 trating their obscurities by references to flowers and birds, and such 

 like Arcadian types of rurality. We are no great hands at that 

 business, nor can we decide the question mooted by ornithologists, 

 whether vultures see or scent carrion ? But we believe it is un- 

 disputed, that the appearance of the winged obscenities is indicative 

 of the proximity of corruption. In like manner when bipeds, 



