C 545 } 



NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GFNERAL. 



WHEN the French have lost a battle, they always swear that it was 

 lost by treachery. The sauve qui pent is regularly traced to a lofty 

 origin. No " bandy-legged drummer/' no faint-hearted captain of the 

 guards, no half-dozen regiments, peppered beyond all Gallic patience, 

 and moving to the rear without leave of absence, has any thing to 

 do with the affair. The whole is a sly contrivance of some rogue of a 

 field-marshal, bribed by foreign gold, and on the strength of a heavy 

 purse consenting to tarnish the national honour. 



On precisely the same principle our politicians, when after a short 

 burst of triumph they begin to discover that the day is against them, 

 always cry out secret influence. The leading Whig journal thus makes 

 the discovery that the Reform scheme is going to the dogs, and, of all 

 people under the smoky canopy of London, who is the antagonist ? the 

 Queen ! 



(t Reports have been much circulated, with reference to a belief of an 

 improper interference on the part of an Illustrious Personage on the subject of 

 the Reform Bill. We know that lady to be as much distinguished for the 

 most amiable feelings, and for a just sense of her duties, as she is by her 

 exalted station : with such feelings, every thing tending to political intrigue, 

 or to an active part in the measures of a party, is absolutely incompatible ; 

 and we are as confident as we are of our existence that no attempt could pro- 

 ceed from that quarter to disturb the mind of the sovereign, or throw difficul- 

 ties in the way of his ministers." 



We firmly believe that the Queen has no more to do with the 

 break-down of the Bill than the Emperor of Timbuctoo. But the cry is 

 symptomatic it is evidence of failure, and we may rely on the clamour 

 of the advocates of the measure for the proof of their fears. Now that 

 we are on the subject of royalty, why will not some of the royal and 

 noble authors of the day enlighten us on the name of the fashionable 

 nude, on whom the Court itself fixed its critic eyes ? 



" A reproof has been addressed from an illustrious quarter to a celebrated 

 fashionable beauty, on the indecorum of her costume at the drawing room, 

 which was such as to excite universal surprise." 



The announcement awakes all our curiosity too, as to the degree of 

 the developement in question. For on our faith, as cavaliers, we have 

 seen admitted into drawing-rooms, figures constructed on a principle of 

 such perfect candour, that the eye might as well doubt of their shape 

 as of the Venus de Medicis, or a naked negress. What could go 

 beyond those we cannot easily imagine, at least in a climate where the 

 east wind reigns for one six months, and the Lincolnshire fogs are 

 paramount for the other. 



Frederic Reynolds, who retains his pleasantry under the frosts of, who 

 can tell how many years ? has filled his Dramatic Annual with pleasant 

 wrath against the powers, plays, and things that be. But his passions 

 burst out most oratorically, where the sound of " salary," word dear 

 to the sons of St. Stephen's, as well as of Thalia comes to sting them 

 into vengeance. What can be more Demosthenic than the following ? 



" There be players who now-a-days receive, twenty, thirty, ay, fifty 

 pounds per night ; whilst Mrs. Siddons, in the ( meridian of her glory,' 

 received one thousand pounds for eighty nights (i. e. about twelve pounds 



M.M. New Series. VOL. XI. No. 65. 4 A 



