320 Notes of the Month on [MARCH, 



The old French government were said to keep some of their smaller 

 West India Islands for the express purpose of getting rid of importu- 

 nate claimants. And they undoubtedly had the art of rapidly satiating 

 the candidates for promotion. A quick succession were provided for, 

 and the minister's hands were effectually relieved for the time. We cer- 

 tainly have no idea of imputing this politic barbarism to an English 

 government. But while men are mad for money-making, or ravenous 

 after place, we shall have candidates for every thing, though the first 

 thing that they met in Sierra Leone, or elsewhere, was their coffin. The 

 number of persons who have died in office in this dreadful colony, 

 within the last ten years, is astonishing ; and the public have a right to 

 call upon government to refuse its aid to this suicide. Many of the 

 individuals who have perished there, were men of talent and education, 

 which might have benefited society at home, and which even as a matter 

 of traffic in the ways of the world, might have been the means of 

 eminence and fortune ; but sent precipitately to that miserable place, 

 they were flung into the charnel. 



The age of diplomacy has succeeded to the age of war, and the 

 cabinet has its heroes as well as the field. Metternich's name is already 

 distinguished for dexterity in council, but he is now about making an 

 experiment in which the chances are formidably against him. The 

 German papers say, he is going to marry the Countess Melaina Zichy, 

 daughter of a Count Zichy Ferara, who is young enough to be his 

 grand-daughter. This well-known statesman is nearing the vener- 

 able age of sixty. We presume it must be his attachment to the " Holy 

 Alliance" that induces him, at such an age, to marry. It has often been 

 found less difficult to govern an empire than a wife. The prince lately 

 requested his conge from the emperor's service, and the request set all the 

 cabinets of Europe in a fever of inquiry. That any individual in pos- 

 session of so good a thing as the purse of the imperial treasury should 

 give it up in any case short of death, was pronounced to be an impossi- 

 bility. But the secret is now out. Some time since an English member 

 of parliament applied for leave of absence, on the ground of very par- 

 ticular business, which required all his attention. A member, in obser- 

 vation, desired to know whether he was not going to some of the dis- 

 turbed districts ? He was answered by the absentee's friend ; " that it 

 was pretty much the same he was going to be married !'' The 

 prince's conge is now accounted for. 



The code of national honour differs curiously according to longitude 

 and latitude. In England smuggling is a crime, which costs some 

 millions a year, in revenue officers, revenue cruisers, and preventive 

 service, and in the teeth of the three, smuggling goes on as briskly as 

 ever. The communication with foreigners however is so far from an 

 offence, that all our rising generation of men, are furnishing themselves 

 with cigars, chin-tufts, and gibberish from foreigners, and are succeeding 

 wonderfully in looking like monkeys ; and our ladies see so much grace 

 in a lip covered with moustache and rappee, that every word muttered 

 by a varlet goes to the heart, keen as the keenest arrow of Cupid, and 

 the fair one, if she have money enough, becomes the happy spouse of 

 Monsieur Le Comte Coquin, without delay. But in China the senti- 



