1830.] Affairs in General 449 



He next defended Mr. Nasli's conduct, on the ground that he was 

 then sick in his bed ; which again strikes us as a curious ground of 

 defence. But let us hear this nervous orator's own words. 



" Mr. Nash was, it would appear, to be hunted session after session, 

 until the gallant member could find at last some set of men weak enough 

 to coincide with him in his views. Nor would the House sanction such 

 a course, when, in addition to its manifest injustice, he informed them 

 the victim now singled out to satiate his resentment was an aged man, in 

 so dangerous a state of illness as would ensure him the commiseration 

 and sympathy of every man within those walls. If any member ima- 

 gined that the charges made against him, as a man destitute of probity 

 or honour, were well founded, Mr. Goulburn trusted he would speak 

 his mind out fully, in order that he might have, before the subject was 

 ultimately decided, an opportunity of defending himself from charges 

 which he fondly hoped would not be levelled against him by any other 

 man within those walls. Under such aspersions as he had heard made 

 against him to-night, it was impossible he should, even at the hazard of 

 life and all he held dear in it, suffer his character to remain for a single 

 hour without attempting its vindication." 



Now of the delicacy of this indignant gentleman's virtues, far be it 

 from us to doubt ; for the law of libel assumes a tenfold frown, when 

 we dream of disputing the virtue of a placeman. But this Mr. Goul- 

 burn is our supreme disgust. This was the man whose miserable medi- 

 ocrity of understanding, would have kept him to the last hour of his 

 life among the sweepings of office, but for his affected zeal for the cause 

 of Protestantism. This was the man, who regularly lost his breath, and 

 apologized for forgetting the half of his speech, by his overwhelming 

 horror at any attempt to bring Popery into the legislature. This was 

 the man whose Protestantism was so founded on a rock, was so rigidly 

 righteous an Aristides who courted unpopularity by the sternness of 

 his honesty, a Fabricius who could no more be turned from the path of 

 honour, than the sun from his course ! that he was sent over to Ireland, 

 expressly to be a check on the slippery genius of the Irish Administra- 

 tion ; to be a drag-chain upon the precipitous politics of that very silly 

 and prattling cabinet ; to be ballast for the top-heavy bark of the Irish 

 government, with such a monkey tribe perched upon the shrouds. 



Yet this was the man, whom, in a few months after the strongest 

 protestations of sincerity in the noblest cause that could move the heart 

 of honour, we saw sneaking to the ministerial foot, and unsaying every 

 syllable that he had ever said before. , 



With respect to Mr. Nash, we have not heard that he has been com- 

 pelled to disgorge any of those purchases which the committee, lenient 

 as it was, pronounced to be wrong. His canal shares, and his Charing- 

 cross purchases, are, we believe, still in his possession. He has been 

 " badgered a little for them," as the Marquis of Lansdowne phrases it; 

 but he is willing to bear the burthen, if we still let him keep the re- 

 ward. But this we hope will not be suffered, notwithstanding his being 

 in his sick bed, and in the bosom of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 



We hear extraordinary things of the financial difficulties of the crowd 

 of Institutions that have started up with such rapidity during the last 

 half dozen years. But the Horticultural Society takes the lead, at least, 



M.M. New Series. VOL. IX. No. 52. 3 M 



