C 116 3 [F EB , 



THE YEAR 1830. 



LET none of our gentle readers imagine that we are about to make a 

 melancholy business of it : quite the contrary. We are rejoiced that a 

 new year lies before us, for we never hated a year so thoroughly as the 

 year that is gone by. It began in sulkiness and sourness of all kinds ; sky 

 and earth, sea and shore, were equally in ill-humour; every hour of it 

 was pregnant with politics and bad weather. It had speeches and storms 

 enough to have made half a century detestable. As it grew, hurricanes 

 and harangues contested the superiority; ^Eolus and Mr. Peel vociferated 

 with rival lungs ; Wellington and the north-wester were our unhappy 

 portion once in every four-and-twenty hours. We had Lord Holland's 

 protests, and the Duke of Buckingham's letters, encumbering the news- 

 papers ; while the snow was falling at Midsummer. But now all is at rest. 

 The public that unfathomable ocean of politics is tranquil; as tranquil 

 as Sir Thomas Lethbridge's sleep on the back benches, after his best 

 harangue ; or the sleep of the House during it. We petition no more. 

 The Constitution quietly and safely reposes, with its head in the mouth 

 of his Grace the Premier. The Cabinet rides in triumph without a mor- 

 tal memento in its rear : its members are in full possession of all the 

 national confidence that they will ever attain ; perquisites, patronage, 

 and permanency, are the motto on their triumphal car ; the nation is yet 

 neither actually conquered by France, nor paying tribute to Russia, nor 

 paying the rest of the world its debts on a composition of a farthing in the 

 pound, nor flying to the Ilinois, nor sunk into the bowels of the ocean. 

 Well then may we exult, put on our gala-dress, and, glorifying King, 

 Marchioness, Duke, and Horse-Guards, thank the stars for all their 

 miracles, and welcome in the happy new year ! 



But let us take the affair a little more in detail. That England never 

 had such a Cabinet before, we assert with the most fearless confidence; that 

 the " grand machine" was never so thoroughly deserving of its name ; that 

 it has all the finest properties of a machine ; and that not a desultory move- 

 ment of mind, not a disturbing volition, not the most delicate deviation 

 from the impulse of the master-hand, is perceptible by the keenest eye. 

 And what lover of his country but must rejoice in this completeness of 

 organization ? We have now none of those turbulent disclosures of 

 state affairs, which so often startled the nation in the times when premiers 

 were unscientific enough to let such men as the Chathams, Hollands, and 

 Shelburnes within the Downing-street machinery ; disturbers, which 

 were no sooner among the wheels, than they set the whole machine out 

 of order ; one wheel went to the north, and another to the south, until 

 the whole burst asunder, and the nation saw itself cabinetless for some 

 twelve hours ! 



England survived, it is true, those melancholy chasms in her execu- 

 tive existence. But who could think of the possibility of their occurring 

 again, without horror ? What man in the possession of his parts of speech, 

 but would exclaim against the national misfortune of seeing a set of new 

 liveries at the Treasury door, or the cabriolet of the Premier turning off 

 from the entrance of Downing-street ? Nations will bear to lose much ; but 

 the smile of Mr. Peel, as he mounts the spacious staircase of the Home 

 Office, amid his troop of bowing messengers and adoring policemen, 

 would be a loss which England could never sustain ! The unquestioned 

 fact is, that the empire never had an administration on whose ability, 



