1830. J The Year 1830. 117 



integrity, dignity of mind, and official and personal honour, it had 

 formed so decided an opinion. If all this be so, why the deuce should we 

 alone hang our hats upon our brows ? Why should we lift up our voices in 

 lamentation, and not rather take the goods the gods provide us ; rejoice 

 in the conviction that the seasons will be more propitious this year than 

 the last, as when things come to the worst they must mend ; that the 

 weavers, farmers, merchants, and populace will not be more clamorous, 

 miserable, or bankrupt, or famished this year than the last, for the same 

 reason ; that free-trade laws, corn laws, poor laws, Chancery laws, police 

 laws, and parliamentary laws, will be as favourite and flourishing as ever 

 they were ; and, first and highest of all our congratulations, that the pre- 

 sent Cabinet will stay in to the last hour that they can. 



We have heard but it was with at once the deepest alarm and the 

 most unqualified surprise that a most illustrious personage, chiefly 

 residing in the neighbourhood of Windsor, has lately shewn occasional 

 symptoms of restlessness, and has now and then even gone the length of 

 wishing what no two men on earth wish more than Lord Grey and Mr. 

 Brougham. But not desiring to commit the disrespect of asking 

 direct questions of that illustrious personage, we shall ask them of Lord 

 Fife. " Does your Lordship, in the sacred recesses of your own immacu- 

 late breast and accomplished understanding, feel a doubt as to the 

 incomparable openness, manliness, and sincerity of his Grace the Pre- 

 mier's mind j as to his utter scorn, not merely of the low arts of office, 

 but of the high ; of his public power of addressing the Senate ; 

 of his profound personal knowledge of the constitutional laws of Eng- 

 land j and of his perfect fitness, from his habits of life since he first 

 wore an epaulet, to administer the concerns of a British people ? 



' ' We ask, can your Lordship have any idea that the equal of the Home 

 Secretary could be found, not merely in the ranks of Toryism, but un- 

 der the banners of Broughamism ? (Whiggery is a dead letter). It is 

 useless to go on. The virtues, talents, and public services of the others 

 have been too familiar to public recollection to require a catalogue of 

 our inditing. Then, my Lord, take the first opportunity, the first 

 mollia tempora fandi, of telling, where it may be felt, that England, 

 having never produced such a cabinet, never expects to be able to pro- 

 duce such another." 



So, the ministry will stand. Pledge will be added to pledge, and per- 

 formed with all the fidelity of the last. Sneerers may arise, who will 

 persist in believing that sufferings among the people have some connexion 

 with blunders in the Government. Weavers, by the twenty thousand, 

 will, by possibility, march through the streets, and startle the laced 

 menials in Whitehall. But the refutation will come from a quarter irre- 

 sistible in point of dignity. A note will settle the point ; and the recreant 

 weavers will be convicted of being hungry under false pretences. What 

 the next Speech from the throne will be, we shall not presume to inquire. 

 We know too well the sovereign respect due to the august individuals 

 into the hands of whose inscrutable wisdom we have committed our desti- 

 nies. We sit under the shadow of the Treasury wing ; rejoicing in its 

 strength, and measuring the solidity of its protection by the thickness of 

 its shade. But, judging from the past, the Speech will be of the most 

 cheering nature. The British empire will hear with delight, and the 

 continental world with consternation, that all our energies are not merely 

 unimpaired, but invigorated ; that we stand on a footing of the firmest 



