1829.] The Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet. 341 
takes it merely as an executive officer ; the king is a legislator. It is 
nonsense to say that he cannot resist the will of parliament.. It was for 
the actual purpose of resisting the will of parliament, if it should ever 
be mad enough to approach the overthrow of the established religion, 
that this oath was framed. It was meant to be the last rampart of the 
constitution. It is nonsense to say that the parliament can dispense with 
the oath. The oath has been made by the king, not as a member of 
parliament, but as a sovereign; not simply to his people, but to God. 
He has pledged himself not merely to keep the religion safe for the 
present generation, but to deliver it as he received it, to his successor, 
for the latest posterity. By this oath the king is bound, until he puts 
off all human obligations for the grave. 
We must not now go further into the reasons which make this conclu- 
sion still more unanswerable, but advert to the slight and common topic 
of the difficulty of finding any successors to the present unpopular and 
hazardous Cabinet. 
Since the world began, the rogues and fools, a pair of deliberative 
bodies that always act in conjunction, have had their rallying cry. And 
the cry now is, where, if we kicked out, or hanged, or sent to Botany 
Bay, to-morrow, the whole of the present cabinet, should we be able to 
find another. That we should not be able to find another like it, we hope 
from the bottom of our souls; and firmly believe, that except among 
the Rats, we should be under a moral impossibility of making the 
discovery. 
But the cry is, where will you find the talent? The “talents” is an 
old burlesque, almost too old for any thing but the dullest of jokes, and 
worthy of figuring in a speech of Lord King; but we shall take the 
liberty of inquiring singly into the extraordinary brilliancy of those 
lights, whose extinction would leave the empire to darkness. We put 
his Grace of Wellington out of the question, for a while. As to his 
military merits there is no doubt, we may come to his ministerial by 
and by ; but of his whole cabinet beside, we pronounce that there is 
not one man above the commonest average of society. We will go fur- 
ther, and with as much security ; and pronounce that there never has 
been, in British history, a cabinet so contemptible, not merely in point of 
principle—that point is settled by universal consent—but in point of in- 
tellect. In all the cabinets, hitherto, there have been three or four of 
the best men that the premier could collect. The stronger his cahinet 
was, the stronger his ministry, and, of course, he looked out for the 
ablest coadjutors. But the very reverse has been the present system. 
Wellington has looked out for the weakest coadjutors, and has done it 
on principle, if the word be not scandalized by its application. _It was 
his object to have a submissive cabinet, a table-full of miserable depend- 
ants, ready to do as they were bid in all things; not daring to speak 
above their breaths while the field-marshal was present ; and so per- 
fectly conscious of their own total exclusion from public respect, 
confidence, or consideration, that a look from him would turn them aloof, 
without a hope of commiseration or their quarter’s salary. 
Now let us see, one by one, those extraordinary geniuses, whose being 
kicked out of Downing Street—which we pray Heaven that they may 
before another month is over—would be so fatally irreparable. 
First comes Lord Melville, a shining character, as every body knows ; 
and without whose seamanship the navy of England must go head- 
foremost to the dogs. We hope that it may be no public crime to 
