514 Letter on Affairs in general. [MAY, 



economist. The Lords have been as busy as the Commons in doing 

 nothing ; and, save on one or two occasions, when there issued from their 

 lips indistinct m titterings of opposition to all changes in the laws, affecting 

 Catholics and Corn, have preserved a most decorous and edifying silence. 

 Indeed their very existence would have been forgotten, had it not been for 

 the portentous consequences which resulted from the loss of Mr. Bell's 

 seventeen and sixpenny umbrella. Talk of the loss of Calais to Queen 

 Mary ! Why it was nothing to the loss of that umbrella to Mrs. Bell. But 

 though Mary, with all England at her back, sought not to obtain another 

 Calais, Mrs. Bell, with no other resources but those of her own indomitable 

 mind, thought it " foul scorn" not to seek to obtain another umbrella. 

 She raved and remonstrated, but not in vain. She compelled her husband to 

 summons the officer of the House of Lords, to whom he had entrusted it, 

 and bated not one jot in courage when the said officer, with black rod at 

 his heels, came with a more peremptory summons for her husband in 

 return. Well was it for their Lordships that they did not summon this 

 modern Xantippe, instead of her husband, to their bar for, if they had, 

 their characters would have again suffered irreparable injury from conflicting 

 with a woman. Privilege of petticoat against privilege of peerage! Why, 

 in such a quarrel, there is only one side on which a man of spirit can strike; 

 and their Lordship's, therefore, judged wisely in selecting Mr. instead of 

 Mrs. Bell, as the victim of their displeasure. He has, however, gained a 

 loss by it, which he cannot value too highly. He has received, in return 

 for the reprimand of their Lordships, a fame which will last as long as 

 that of his illustrious name sake, Peter ; and I trust that the great Laker, 

 who has already given one Bell to immortality, will not hesitate to perform 

 the same kind office to another. Tf the rape of a lock, of a pulpit, and of 

 a bucket things mean and insignificant in themselves were deemed 

 worthy of song by the Popes. Boileaus, and Tassonis, of former genera- 

 tions, surely the rape of an umbrella, which roused the sleeping peerage of 

 Britain from their trance, and forced them to recollect their violated privi- 

 leges, is not an unfitting subject even for a poet of these Augustan days, to 

 marry to the beauty of high-sounding verse. Besides, who can tell what 

 mighty revolutions may yet spring from this petty cause ? A joke of Sir 

 T. Wyatt caused the reformation, and a song of Lord Shaftesbury* the 

 revolution. The neighing of a steed raised Darius to empire, and the cack- 

 ling of a. goose rescued Rome from ruin. Who then can swear that 

 Mr. Bell's umbrella may not have unseated the administration, and driven 

 the Chancellor from his long appropriation of the woolsack to a reluctant 

 retreat, into the macadamized recesses of Piccadilly and Pimlico ? 



The House of Commons has also found occasion to stir its privileges. 

 Mr. Peel made some remarks on a Mr. Jennings, which led Mr. Jennings 

 to forward a message to Mr. Peel, which was not of the most conciliatory 

 description. Mr. Peel preserved a dignified silence ; and Mr. Jennings 

 feeling himself bound to answer it, sent him another message in still more 

 furious language. Mr. Peel was, nevertheless, still unmoved, when 

 Mr. Jennings being ebullient with beer, and not having the fear of the 

 Serjeant-at-arms before his eyes, threatened to address Mr. Peel no longer 

 by the post, but, in person, from the gallery of the House of Commons. 

 Mr. Peel, who has been pelted roundly enough, in his time, by speeches, 

 regularly delivered in parliament, determined to guard himself from the an- 

 noyance of speeches irregularly delivered there. Ho complained to the House 



* Lillihiillcro. 



