1830.] The Opening of the Session of Parliament. 245 



change of the tide that swept round the good ship the Quarterly to lie 

 with her stem where her stern lay before. There are more things in 

 heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But it is not 

 for us to " pluck out the bowels of the mystery/' and there we leave it 

 to the grand interpreter Time. 



The King's speech has for once disappointed no hope of the country, 

 for the sufficient reason, that the country expected nothing from it. It 

 is of course the speech of ministers ; and however their words are in 

 the habit of exceeding their deeds, yet their whole frame is so nerveless, 

 evasive and trifling, that they have not left themselves the faculty of 

 even a vigorous fiction. The first statement of this Ministerial Expose is 

 worthy of being ranked under the " Court Circular." It informs his 

 Majesty's faithful people that they are not at present fighting the French, 

 nor the Russians intelligence which, for its interest and novelty, must 

 be duly appreciated by an admiring people. 



The speech next informs us that the Turkish and Russian war has 

 been brought to a conclusion. This vies in novelty and interest with 

 the preceding. 



His Majesty has " concerted with his allies measures for the final 

 pacification and settlement of Greece, and trusts to be able to lay such 

 information before the House as will explain his conduct in those trans- 

 actions." We trust that his ministers will lay a very large bundle of 

 tape-tied papers on the table of the Honourable House, which nobody 

 will read, or could understand in case of reading ; that Lord Aber- 

 deen will make a speech of immeasureable prolixity and unfathomable 

 profundity on them in the Upper House, and that Mr. Peel will emu- 

 late his Lordship's example with an extraordinary closeness of rivalry in 

 the Lower ; that Mr. Hume will throw the subject into confusion, and 

 Alderman Waithman throw the house into convulsions ; that the motion, 

 whatever it may be, w r ill leave the country gentlemen and others as 

 wise as it found them ; that a great deal of pleasantry will diversify the 

 proceeding, and that every one present will be happy to get to his bed. 

 " His Majesty laments that he is unable to announce to you any prospect 

 of a reconciliation between the princes of the House of Braganza." Of 

 course not, and the result of the attempt was obvious from the be- 

 ginning to every human being but the " Inscrutibles." The scarlet doors 

 of the council-room shut out the common sense that was to be found in 

 the streets. Every captain of a skiff from Rio or Lisbon could have 

 told the wise men of Downing Street that Don Miguel was a coxcomb, 

 and that Don Pedro was not a hair's-breadth more indebted to nature ; 

 that two coxcombs can never be brought together but for some ad- 

 ditional display of foolery an inflexible law; and that to persuade 

 either of them to listen to any plea of public feeling or personal ge- 

 nerosity, is an extravagance worthy only of the stolidity of a Rat 

 Cabinet. 



But it comes out in this formal document, that Don Miguel is to be 

 recognized as king. And the document makes the further confession, 

 that the Don has forced us to this measure. He is told, that he has 

 gained the victory, and that he owes it to himself, to his system of 

 scorning our remonstrances, and harassing our intercourse with his 

 people " The numerous embarrassments arising from the continued 

 interruption of those relations, increase his Majesty's desire to effect the 

 termination of so serious an evil." te Here be sweet words, faith," as 

 Dame Quickly says. There is no mention of the right or wrong of the 

 affair, none of the old declamation on the hereditary privileges of the 



