398 Wellington Administration, Star-Chamber, QOcT. 



Disposed as we are, however, to accommodate ourselves to all usual 

 and unusual vicissitudes of the seasons, and to shiver contentedly in the 

 dog days if we can get nothing better than north-east winds and spungy 

 clouds, it does not follow, Avhen comets blaze along the sky, or fiery 

 meteors glare portentously down upon us, that we should not observe 

 their motions, investigate their causes, and endeavour to ascertain their 

 probable effects. Akin to such phenomena in the natural world, are cer- 

 tain remarkable appearances which have recently become visible in our 

 pohtical hemisphere ; and we propose, in the present paper, to examine, 

 with all possible philosophical temjierance, what it is they indicate. 



His Grace the Duke of Wellington, after having defeated Napoleon, 

 and been defeated by O'Connell, is determined, it seems, to put JMr. 

 Alexander and the IMorning Journal liors de combat. Be it so. " There 

 is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous," says — not Buona- 

 parte, as is commonly supposed, but Tom Paine, whose writings were 

 no doubt familiar to his disciple, and in one of whose productions there 

 is this identical expression. Machiavelli, too, lays it down as a maxim 

 (Chap. II. Book III.), in his Discourses upon the first Decade of Livy, 

 that " it is a very great part of wisdom sometimes to seem a fool ;" and 

 Dr. Johnson, in his " Variety of Human Wishes," has these lines : 



" From Marlborough's eyes, the streams of dotage flow. 

 And Swift expires, a driveller and a show !" 



But it is not with his Grace the Duke of Wellington, as the antagonist 

 of I\Ir. Alexander, nor with IMr. Alexander as the accuser of his Grace 

 the Duke of Wellington, that we propose to interfere. The former may 

 think it an atrocious libel to be told that he is " proud, overbearing, 

 grasping," &c. &c. ; and he may deem it necessary to go to the Old 

 Bailey, and prefer a bill of indictment against the latter, for saying so. 

 Be it so, say we again. We quarrel with no man for looking after his 

 character ; nor, whatever may be our opinion of the means he employs 

 to vindicate it, are we inclined to thrust ourselves forward as questioning 

 their fitness. Generally speaking, every man is best able to advise him- 

 self in such matters, because he must know, better than any one else, 

 where he is vulnerable, and what sort of medicine he would prefer taking, 

 to cure his wounds. One thing, however, we must be allowed to 

 remark, with regard to ]Mr. Alexander — if that gentleman has been indis- 

 creet, he is at least manly in his indiscretion ; but, from the firm, uncom- 

 promising manner in which lie abides by his writings, it would be injus- 

 tice to call it indiscretion. He may be wrong ; but it is evident he does 

 not think so himself, and not thinking so, he disdains to say so. This, 

 at least, is a moral int epidity which commands respect ; and proves, 

 that besides possessing great and undisputed talents as a public writer, 

 he has that stuff in him, which, in times of old, conducted martyrs to 

 the stake, for the truth. 



We hardly know how it has happened — by what strange association 

 of ideas — but it has happened, that the recent prosecutions of the press, 

 by ex officio informations, by criminal informations, and by indictments, 

 have insensibly revived in our minds the recollection of much that we 

 had read in our college days, of the court of Star-Chamber. Not that we 

 mean to insinuate the slightest comparison — Heaven forbid ! — between 

 our present courts of law, and that infamous tribunal which, in process of 

 time " came to be so delighted," as Rushworth says, " with blood, that 



