1830.] Affairs in General 453 



tish Museum, Mr. Peel, and Lord Dudley, in succession ; and if not 

 purchased by either of those parties, are to be advertised in ' all the 

 capitals and principal cities in Europe for twenty thousand pounds, and 

 afterwards sold by public auction.' Two volumes of paintings, by F. 

 Bartolomeo, are to be offered in precisely the same manner, except that 

 the National Gallery is substituted, for the British Museum, for 800/. 

 A series of original drawings of Cartoons by Leonardo da Vinci, for his 

 Last Supper, for 1,000/. ; the Wife of Potiphar accusing Joseph, by 

 Rembrandt, for 1,500/. ; and two small paintings, by RafFaelle, for 

 1,000/. ; all to be disposed of as above stated. His collection of Archi- 

 tectural Casts he offers to the Royal Academy, for 250/. they cost him 

 500/. ; his magnificent set of Sevre Porcelain, given to him by the King 

 of France, he leaves to the Academy, to be used on all great occasions. 

 He recommends to his executor, his dear friend William Young Ottley, 

 Esq., to make the sale catalogue of his various works. After the pay- 

 ment of his just debts, he leaves the entire residue of his wealth to his 

 sister, nephews, and nieces." 



How has it happened that we have no " Life of Lord North ?" while 

 the world is bored in all quarters with all kind of lives the plodding, 

 the powerless, the puppyish ; women that never were young, and boobies 

 that never were old, the faded refuse of courts, and the bustling cox- 

 combry of club-rooms. " Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor," might 

 be the indignant exclamation of the premier's ghost to his lounging and 

 caricaturing descendants. North's ministry was the most interesting 

 period of the late stirring reign. All the elements of party were in hot 

 and rapid motion ; all the elements of power were shaken ; all the vigour 

 of democratic talent, strengthened and elevated by the grace and habitual 

 dignity of the most accomplished nobility of an accomplished time, was 

 in full display, and England stood between the new and the old worlds, 

 like the tutelar genius, or the destroying angel of both, as she looked on 

 them in peace or anger. 



If we had leisure for such things, we ourselves should give the work 

 to mankind ; but we are busy watching the fortunes of the Emperor of 

 China, estimating the working of our new constitution for Columbia, 

 and luxuriating with the indulgence of Attic taste over the brilliant 

 eloquence of Mr. Peel. 



But if the world's ear is dead to the magnificent tossing and roaring of 

 those billows, on which the skiff of the western republic made her escape 

 into port, but which so soon roared and thundered round the great war- 

 ship of France, bursting over her decks, dashing away at every heave 

 the gilded and royal ornaments and the noble crew, and finally plunging 

 her, in mingled flame and blood, down to the depths from which she has 

 not been raised by the hand of man ; why does no lover of the keen 

 exposure of party revive the more than satiric sagacity of the minister 

 who dragged Fox from his bad eminence by a word, stripped the mask 

 from that most subtle of political swindlers, and shewed the most ostenta- 

 tious partizan of the populace at his feet, kneeling for office and infamy 

 together ? 



Or, why does no lover of the mere pleasantry of the wittiest man of 

 his time, collect those sparkles of wit, which in his day flashed perpetually 

 through the debate and through general society ? This we feel to be a 

 charge upon our own souls. But what can we do, with the care of 



