1831.] 'Affair* in General. 327 



Harrow, or a Lancastrian fox-hunter, are sent over to govern Ireland ; 

 for the lord-lieutenant is generally no more than a grave gentleman, 

 who gives a dinner now and then, has four aides-de-camp, dines once 

 with the lord mayor, and plays whist every evening. Within the last 

 quarter of a century Ireland has enjoyed the change of those governor- 

 ships nearly as often as that of her summer and winter ; for the average 

 of secretaries has been one and a half every two years. That Mr. 

 Stanley may be as decorous a secretary as any of them, we have not the 

 .slightest reason to doubt, but the pamphleteers are prodigiously angry 

 on the occasion, and one of them thus gives his opinion : 



" And whom does Earl Grey send over to fill the all-important office of 

 Secretary for Ireland of the acting-, positive Governor of that fine kingdom ? 

 The Hon. Mr. Stanley. Mr. Stanley ! A young man, thirty years of age, 

 .unconnected by birth or station, or (I believe) family connections, with Ire- 

 land ; who knows nothing of Irish affairs, or of Irishmen, from his own per- 

 sonal observation and experience ; and whose recommendation to office must 

 consist in one or the other of these two accidents : that he is the lineal heir, 

 after Lord Stanley, of the powerful house of t)erby that, during Mr. Can- 

 ning's administration, he was Under-Secretary for the Colonies. Are the 

 destinies of all the English families in Ireland of all the vital interests which 

 connect, reciprocally, Ireland and England of all the relations in which 

 England stands to foreign Courts, in respect of her government of Ireland 

 to be really confided to such guardianship as this ? Is this a time for favour- 

 itism, or patronage, or jobbing, in a particular of such immense importance 

 to the English ? I blush for the respectable name, the former character, the 

 present position of Earl Grey !" 



All this is very lively, and very angry. Yet, is it not rather hard, 

 Lancashire as the new secretary may be, to charge him with his thirty 

 years as a crime ? nothing is more capable of mending. And as to 

 principle, aye, fixed, determined, intractable principle, will he not be 

 as brilliant an example as Sir Robert Peel, let him turn as he may ? And 

 as for courtesy, dignity, and honour, is he likely to fall below the 

 standard of our right trusty, and faithful cousin and friend, Mr. 

 Goulburn ? Perhaps he may not write as good poetry, or perform so 

 well in private theatricals, as Lord Francis Gower ; but time, that 

 works other wonders, may accomplish even to this height the natural 

 faculties of the secretary for the Gem of the Ocean, &c. 



We see by the reports of the trials, that Mr. St. John Long has 

 been acquitted. On this subject the tribunals are of course the most 

 competent to decide, and we can have no quarrel with them for their 

 decision, nor with the subject of the trial, for making the best fight 

 that he could. It must be acknowledged, that he brought before the 

 court a great number of respectable persons to vouch for his character, 

 and to give evidence to the utility of his practice. As to any hostility 

 on our part, as journalists, to him, we could have had none, and merely 

 followed in our statements, those which every day produced in the 

 newspapers. On the course of cure to which he has pledged himself, 

 we may at our further leisure give a more deliberate opinion. But, 

 for the present we shall say, that being perfectly aware that medicine 

 is at best but a grand experiment, and a discovery by no means re- 

 stricted to those who have taken degrees in the college of physicians, 

 we are prepared to give credit to Mr. St. John Long, or to any one, 

 who shall produce an effective remedy for any disease, and peculiarly 



