196 Notes of the Month on [Aug. 



Behnore's having a fit of the gout, which disabled his lordship from 

 attending to them with due vigilance. Government is, undoubtedly, 

 responsible in all cases of the hazard of life or limb, and we must 

 expect that the home secretary will not suffer the negligence of the 

 Colonial secretary, in appointing a gouty governor to an earthquake 

 island, to be his example. Unluckily the thing has been too often done 

 to allow of an impeachment, and the subsequent decapitation; otherwise 

 we should call public attention to the fact that Ireland, as shattered and 

 crazy a spot as any crust of a volcano in the Atlantic, has had a suc- 

 cession of remarkably goutj'^ governors within the last dozen j'ears. 

 His grace of Northumberland has a twinge every month, that would 

 shut up his soul and body in flannel, though Ireland were in one con- 

 vulsion, from Carrickfergus to Cape Clear, as that learned and moderate 

 person. Dr. Doyle, says. We have a good deal of gout at home, and in 

 high places too. Yet we have no treasonable feelings, when we aver 

 that we cordially wish gout to be abolished, as an appurtenance of 

 office, both at home and abroad. In our travels, we learned to abhor 

 the very name. Wherever anything was to be required of a British 

 ambassador, which the ambassador was too lazy, or too insolent, or too 

 fiddling, or too flirting to do, he had instantly a severe fit of the gout. 

 The envoys followed the model. There were days when it was impos- 

 sible to have so much as a passport signed by one of those foot-bound 

 functionaries ; the clerks and porters were actuallj- beginning to dis- 

 cover the convenience of the disease, and nothing less than a handsome 

 douceur could effect their recovery. 



The Thames Tunnel has always appeared to us a project so worthy of 

 British intelligence and enterprise, and holding out a rational promise 

 of such extensive advantages, not merely to England but to Europe, 

 that we ha\ e advocated it from the beginning, even under all its diffi- 

 culties. It has all along appeared to us in the light of a great national 

 effort to add to the command of man over nature, and we should have 

 considered its abandonment by the country, as not merely the failure of 

 an ingenious scheme of individual profit, but as a loss of public honour. 

 We are, therefore, glad to see that the general interest in it exists still ; 

 that it is visited by great numbers, and that exertions are still made in 

 the higher quarters to perfect tliis most admirable and dai'ing labour of 

 British science. 



A mc3ting was lately held to take into consideration the feasibility 

 of a new proposal for completing the excavation, and a report has been 

 published. ]\Ir. Vignoles, a civil engineer, has offered to dig the tunnel 

 to the opposite bank, at a sum not exceeding 250/. a yard, to advance 

 5,000/. of work, and give security for the general performance, by a 

 bond for 10,000/., and a reserve of ten per cent from all payments, until 

 the Avork is completed. If the engineer shall be able to get through the 

 ground, those terms form certainly a very considerable temptation to 

 employ him. Mr. Brunei's estimate is heavy, and we give it as at 

 once a curious engineering document and a warning to those who 

 rush into great works on the first estimate. If we recollect rightly the 

 first estimate for the whole was not quite 300,000/. But now after the 

 expenditure of 1 70,000/., we find that neaily twice as much more will 

 be requh-ed. 



