578 The New Ministry. [JUNE, 



four men whose voices commanded attention in the House of Commons the 

 instant that they rose Mr. Canning, Mr. Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, 

 and Mr. Tierney. All these men are now upon the ministerial benches : 

 five-sixths of the second-rate talent of the House support them ; and they 

 are opposed, literally the debates will shew it by Mr. Dawson and Sir 

 Thomas Lethbridge ! Mr. Dawson is an acute, clever man, as a third-rate 

 politician. Sir Thomas Lethbridge is a gentleman in his appearance and 

 manners, and a man of the most unquestioned personal firmness and honour. 

 But Mr. Brougham gets up, after their fiercest efforts makes a speech 

 rather for his amusement than troubling himself with the question and 

 laughs the whole phalanx such " Opposition" leaders, and their support- 

 ers out of the field. 



This is the position of the high Tory party which is not only a suffi- 

 ciently embarrassing one, but one which is by no means likely to improve ; 

 because they are not merely weak in talent, and, as we believe, in nume- 

 rical strength ; but their hands are, in a great measure, tied and they will 

 discover this by their recent different situations. The topic of " past 

 declarations" will be found, we suspect, to form a far more serious obstacle 

 in the way of the Opposition than it can be made (at least at present) in the 

 way of ministers. The Catholic question, which they would give a hundred 

 thousand pounds to bring on, they cannot bring on because the object 

 of their touching it would be too transparent. They would give their 

 salvation to have the question tried ; but they cannot bring it on merely 

 in order to oppose it. So, again, the new ministry, like every ministry 

 that ever existed, will have a certain number of jobs and shabby trans- 

 actions to perform ; but these otherwise golden occasions will do very 

 little for the present Opposition ; for all the first jobs to be done the cur- 

 rent and unfinished ones will be those in which they themselves, not six 

 weeks since, were personally engaged. And, still again, upon all the ordi- 

 nary routine points that form the hope of an Opposition the money ques- 

 tions, retrenchment, reduction of military force, colonies, taxes, embassies, 

 pensions, sinecure places, and rewards one eternal bar presents itself to the 

 operations of the ultra-Tories ; for, how can they open their mouths upon 

 such subjects, without having their own justification of the very acts that 

 they are impugning quoted against them ; and thrust down their throats, 

 amid the laughter of the very Treasury votes that formed their own majo- 

 rities ? And yet these are the people that are proposing to found them- 

 selves upon " recorded declarations!" 



For these reasons it is, therefore among a variety of others, which it 

 would detain our readers too long in this place to describe that we fully 

 believe that the Coalition ministry (with all its sins upon its head) will 

 stand its ground ; and that it must be upon the future conduct of the parties 

 who compose it, and not upon their past declarations, that the Opposition 

 must find cause to attack it, before it can be attacked with any prospect 

 of success or of advantage. Our own opinion is, moreover, that the public 

 has reason to be well pleased in supporting this state of things ; because, 

 while we give full credit to the seceding party for their spirit and sincerity, 

 we do believe that the principles professed by their successors are more 

 consonant to the wishes of enlightened people in this country, and more 

 decidedly those which the increased information of the country, and the 

 altered and improving state of Europe, generally, demand. Unfortunately, 

 to any departure from a system of policy which was highly advantageous 



