[ 316 ] [Sept. 



notes of the month on affairs in geneual. 



The British cabinet, with the most wonder-working genius at its head 

 that ever decided the destinies of nations, may now go and cut toothpicks. 

 The. barbarians have turned the miracle-worker to scorn, the Mus- 

 covites have laughed at his politics, and the Cossacks have made car- 

 tridge-paper of his protocols. The. Russians are at Constantinople. Yet 

 Europe may feel itself safe, for his Grace the Dictator has said so, and is 

 gone to Walmer Castle. The Russians are marching over hill and 

 plain, swimming rivers, storming fortresses, and firing at the very beard 

 of the Sultan. The Dictator is whitewashing, bricklaying, papering, 

 jiainting, and glazing. Russia is gathering fleet upon fleet in the Euxine, 

 and throwing cannon-shot into the seraglio. The Dictator is taking his 

 morning's bath at Deal, and his evening's ride at Dover. But tranquil- 

 lity is the true attitude of grandeur, as Voltaire says, we are afraid, with 

 a sneer, at the dulness of the great ; and " solitude is the true school 

 of a statesman and philosopher," says Zimmerman, we are afraid, with 

 the grave foolery congenial to his countrymen. At all events, if the 

 Czar establish himself in the seraglio, we shall have opium cheap, and 

 we then may share the dignified repose of the first of ministers- 

 All Paris had been employing itself during tlie dull months of spring 

 in conjecturing what imder heaven could make Prince Polignac so fond 

 of crossing the channel. The weather was a perpetual storm ; the king 

 Avas no lovelier than he had been during the last seventy years ; the 

 prince had not a share in the proceeds of the Academic Royale deDanse, 

 and Avas not miserable without the play and jielits soupers of the Salon ; 

 and yet not a fortnight transpired without the sudden apparition of the 

 prince in Paris. The problem is at length resolved. He was manu- 

 facturing a ministry — which early in this month was announced in form, 

 in the indignant journals of the astonished capital of the Graces. Prince 

 de Polignac, INIinister for Foreign Affairs ; M. de la Bourdonnaye, Mi- 

 nister of the Interior J Count de Chabrol, Minister of Finance ; Gene- 

 ral Bourmont, IMinister at War ; M. Courvoisier, Minister of Justice ; 

 the office of JMinister of Commerce, Public Instruction and Religion, 

 being united with that of Minister of the Interior ; Baron de Haussez, 

 JMinister of the IMarine ; M. de Portals, First President of the Court of 

 Cessation. 



The whole revolutionary and jacobin press of Paris, which is about 

 nine-tenths of the whole, has been in uproar ever since, and every phrase 

 that the bitterest writhings of French vexation can invent, has been, 

 poured upon the new ministry. Prince Polignac has certainly not pro- 

 fited much by his English sojourn, in making battle against this host of 

 patriotic scolds. Here, when the ministry are pelted by one journal, 

 they administer that kind of wisdom to another, which raises a champion 

 immediately. The attack is retorted in an hour or two after it is made, 

 and the minister who was torn down to the earth in the morning, is 

 exalted to the skies in the afternoon. The balance is kept up. A few judi- 

 cious fragments of intelligence thrown into the friendly paper, soon give 

 it a formidable supremacy with the reading mob ; and the opposition 

 journal, finding tlie diminution of its pence and popularity, follows the 

 exami)le of its superiors, and quietly rals as fast as it can. We give this 

 advice to Prince Polignac as the result of ?n expei'ience never once 



