120 The Year 1830. [FEB. 



bears the name of English ; we shall have only to laugh at their obsolete 

 prejudices, and congratulate ourselves on our infinite velocity in the 

 inarch of mind. 



Lord Aberdeen is the foreign secretary, Jama super csthera notus. 

 Who, upon the surface of the earth, can be ignorant of the splendour of 

 Lord Aberdeen's faculties? the brilliancy of an eloquence that extin- 

 guishes or consumes every thing before it; and the vigour, wisdom, 

 and steadiness of a diplomacy that has, for two long years of British 

 triumph, delighted Europe and puzzled our politicians ? To the carping 

 queries of faction, in arid out of the House ; from his lordship's esta- 

 blished supremacy of talents, we can anticipate only the most cutting 

 and victorious replies. 



Some of the factious will probably attempt to take this paragon 

 of foreign secretaries to task : for instance, upon Portuguese affairs. 

 He may be asked, whether we are at peace or war with Portugal? 

 What his lordship will say, we must not conjecture. But the most 

 statesman-like answer on the globe would be, " To the best of his 

 Majesty's Ministers' knowledge, they do not know ; but, if noble lords 

 will insist on their belief, they believe that they are at neither the one 

 nor the other." To the question, whether they recognize or not Don 

 Miguel's title ? the irresistible answer would be, also, " Neither the one 

 nor the other." " Do they support or disavow the Constitution brought 

 from the Brazils by the British ambassador ?" The answer would be, 

 (e Neither the one nor the other." (f Do they recognize or not the 

 refugees in Terceira, in their resistance to Don Miguel ?" " Neither the 

 one nor the other." 



The logic, wit, and wisdom of this species of reply must rapidly tell 

 upon any House ; and faction must be dumb for ever on all matters 

 lying between Gallicia and the Tagus. 



The Turkish affair may be dispatched with equal facility, and in just 

 the same manner. To the queries, " Did the British Cabinet remon- 

 strate against the invasion of Turkey ?" the answer of a great states- 

 man would be, " We did : we acted with an energy all but supernatural ; 

 we sent a dozen couriers a- week, and had three councils a-day in the 

 best part of the shooting season ; but the Russians are savages, and they 

 laughed at us/' " Did you attempt any thing further than this literary 

 resistance ?" " Yes ; we sent an ambassador, who gave the handsomest 

 ball ever given on a ship's deck, coasted up the Bosphorus in grand cos- 

 tume, and was present at a feast, where his Highness the Sultan drank 

 the health of King George the Fourth." " But the Russians marched over 

 the Turkish provinces, broke down the Sultan^ and encamped within 

 sight of Constantinople." " It must be allowed that something of the 

 kind is reported ; but the whole transaction originated in a mistake." 

 With this answer, we conceive that the most acrimonious faction must be 

 satisfied, or must be pronounced incapable of feeling the wisdom of the 

 wise. 



But it is time to take a graver glance at what has actually passed. We are 

 not such complete converts to Lord Plunket's memorable dictum, as to be- 

 lieve that History is altogether an old almanack. It may be a capital 

 maxim for a trader in party, an advocate of Whiggery on this side the Chan- 

 nel, and an ex-qfficio Attorney -General on the other. But we are, thank 1 

 Heaven ! not accustomed to guide our consciences by a brief, and as 

 little inclined to bow to the principles of the first party that will smile 



