in revenge of the repulses which his folly brings upon him-and what is true of individual vanity holds also in the case of its larger combinations. The whole world knows that the present opposition have again and again proclaimed themselves the wisest, wittiest, most liberal, and most intellectual of all political associations -that they claim not only a fair and handsome moiety, but entire exclusive possession of all the talent in the country, a proud distinction, which is shared, too, by the meanest limb of the body whiggish, and freely descends to its most abject functionaries. No wonder, then, that persons thus constituted, in point of self-complacency, should be prepared for every bold and decisive enterprize - and the only cause of surprise must be that men, so consciously and highly gifted, should have abstained so long from vindicating their just ascendency. But if the self-conceit of this party explains why they should have seriously made their late attempt, it will explain in some degree also, to all impartial persons, why it should so signally have failed. Very vain and confident persons are not accustomed to measure difficulties or to take into due calculation the weight of resistance they are doomed to encounter-and so it has fared with our friends the whigs, who seem to have had no just conception of their own levity and nothingness, even when borne against their opponents by the stiffest gale of popular discontent and rabble delusion.

The hopes of the opposition were undoubtedly high, whatever interpretation their disappointment may now endeavour to put upon their proceedings. The movements made by them were intended not merely as tentative, but decisive-they meant not only to sound the public feeling, but expected to force their way to office upon its already ascertained determination in their favour. We should not think it worth while to examine the real motives which have led to all this preternatural activity or to discuss for a moment the silly question, whether so much intensity of exertion and hazard of ridicule were encountered in the pure spirit of disinterested magnanimous patriotism-were it not that the whigs, with VOL. VIII.

their usual bad taste, are constantly pressing that discussion upon the country. The motives of all men, we believe, are upon such occasions, somewhat of a mixed nature-partly selfish-partly social and patrioticand the whigs can only make themselves ridiculous by claiming an exemption from the general law of all public exertion. It is too much, surely, that the same men should arrogate for themselves a sort of superhuman purity of motive with an absolute supremacy of talent-that to one motley and rather unpromising division of our countrymen should belong at once all the moral and intellectual excellence of the land. Do they imagine that such professions and assumptions can gain them a single convert out of the range of lunacy-or can have any other effect than to cover the whiggish cause with deep suspicion and enduring ridicule? We really think that high office and emolument might have temptations-subordinate, indeed, but still additional, to those of a nature purely patriotic---even to the known disinterestedness and independence of Mr Tierney himself---and we are not moved from our opinion by his most sounding disclaimers. Nay, we should not despair even of some of the demigods of our own Pantheon here, stooping from their celestial elevation, if the way were once fairly cleared for them, to mere corrupt office and its accessory advantages.

The whigs

cannot afford to lose much on the score of reputation for sincerity---and we should, therefore, if they would take any advice from us---seriously recommend it to them to be silent for the future on this delicate topic of disinterestedness---which cannot be named by them without recalling some unhandsome recollections; and frankly avow at once that they are afflicted in common with their fellow mortals with the ordinary human cupidity of influence and power---restring their claim to possession singly upon the greater wisdom and vigour with which, for public ends, they would exert them.

We think it every way important that the pretensions of this party should be calmly but scrupulously examined, and that the nation should be enabled accurately to appreciate the 4 B

chances of public good which would arise from their success. The country is, in some of its lower elements, convulsed and disturbed, and although the disease is, we believe, neither so deep nor so formidable as it has sometimes been represented, we should, of all things, wish to see it-removed. The opposition tell us exultingly, that the discontent has been excited by, and is sternly and exclusively directed against the being of the present administration,-and if this be truly the case, we suppose the only remedy would be the acces sion of the whigs to power. The country is not yet ripe, we take it, for a radical administration, and would not readily succumb to the vagabond supremacy of a faction which disgraces its very name. To the whigs, then, we must look in our perils and distresses, and this, we presume, is exactly the inference which they are ambitious to deduce. Now, we think it easy to show, that the elevation of the whigs would not satisfy that portion of the people which is tainted with discontent,-that, in the meanwhile, it would alarm and revolt that far stronger portion on which alone reliance can be placed for repressing the projects of disaffection; and, finally, that this unhappy party have so far descended from their high place in the constitution, and mingled so dangerously with whatever is aimed at its ruin, that they could not at present be lifted up to power without carrying with them much of the adhesive feculence which they have contracted in their descent, and soiling, perhaps incurably, the dignity of high office, and the current of constitutional influence and power.

Every one knows the submissive assiduity with which the opposition have of late been courting the avowed disturbers of the public tranquillity,and their reception among these sagacious anarchs is no less matter of notoriety. Many an anxious glance have they cast upon the rude workmen of revolution, and under pretence of seducing them into the speculative moderation of whiggery, they have lent them much indirect and not ineffective aid in their projects. They defended the Manchester insurgents, so far, at least, as the bitterest reproach upon that exercise of power which, in all probability, prevented them from

consummating their crime, could be defence and protection. No form of tumult, or aspect of rebel array, has deterred them from advocating what they have been pleased to term the constitutional meetings of the people, ---no libel, however atrocious upon the constitution or religion of their country, has impeded their exertions in support of what they injuriously misname the liberty of the press. The plotters of mischief have ever found succour, as efficient, at least, as the heartiest good-will could make it, -in the men who affect to be the guardians of the British constitution,—and the radicals know, that they can count upon the whigs in their extremest peril, and utmost outrage upon the laws. The leaning of these gracious and forgiving persons is ever in favour of the enemies of public order,--and whatever is blackest in the conduct of the latter, is sure to be palliated by some gratuitous explanation or apology from opposition. The entire gang of aspiring rebellion, know too well, that they can count on the patriotic generosity of the whigs, duly to appreciate the value of so lofty a connection,--they have the whigs enslaved, in fact, and, like other tyrants, they despise their slaves.---Of all the attacks, in prose or verse, made upon that most assailable of all human exhibitions,— the farce at the Edinburgh Pantheon,

by far the most contemptuous and resistless has come from the great father of radicalism, Mr Cobbett, who really has more talent, we suspect, than the entire whig constellation of this metropolis.

Mr Jeffrey is reported to have said at a public meeting here, that so far from disclaiming, he rejoiced in the connection formed betwixt the whigs and radicals,---that he looked to this union as the instrument of passing the latter from the grossness of their present being, so far, at least, as the middle and purgatorial state of whiggism, and that a chance was thus afforded of their being ultimately translated even to the paradise of the tories. This was well enough in Mr Jeffrey's light and jocular strain,--but if he truly meant to announce under this a grave expectation, we would advise him to turn to Cobbett's strictures on the Pantheon meeting,— in the course of which, by the way, that noted person has amply avenged

upon the Edinburgh Reviewers their former expose of his tergiversations. Triumphant alike in fact and argu ment, this singular individual dissects, with inimitable and unfaltering hand, the whole bill of whig grievances, as embodied in the resolutions at the Pantheon,---and ardently pursuing the hypocrisy of the whigs to its meanest and narrowest recesses, he shows that they have not brought one single charge against the tories which may not be turned with extreme and overwhelming facility against themselves,---down even to the summary removal of the venerable Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, who had, upon a former occasion, assisted in paying the same compliment to his Grace of Norfolk. The whole developement, indeed, is at once amusing and instructive,---but it is despair to Mr Jeffrey's ingenious and considerate proposal for passing Cobbett and his multitudinous followers into the whiggish purgatory, which, to their eyes, appears blacker and fouler than the baleful region of toryism itself.

This middle state of being, which has been predicated of the opposition by an individual who, in pre-eminent and various talent, is by far the most illustrious of their northern phalanx, is, of itself, an utter disqualification of them for the conduct of public affairs, so long, at least, as a vestige of the rebellious spirit remains in the land. They must be blind, indeed, who have not long since discovered that this is not a spirit of compromise and conciliation, nor one with which parley and concession can be admitted without equal hazard and humiliation. The proffered boon would be rejected in scorn-the poor trusting messenger of concord would become the object of eternal and grinning infamy to the audacious, flattered, and unrelenting genius of ruin and crime.-The Edinburgh Review, the great oracle of the whiggish wisdom of the north, has, in its last truly brilliant and effective exhibition, formally proposed terms to the radicals on the subject of parliamentary reform; and, with a view to conciliation, summoned up the marvellous liberality of adding a score of fresh members to the House of Commons, to sit for some of the most populous and now unrepresented places. What will the yet unshackled Cobbett,

or the incarcerated Hunt, say to this magnificence of concession to this true whiggish radical reform? The tide of their derision and disdain will mount to its height upon so strange an occasion-and sweep in imagination the drivelling propounder of such a scheme far beyond the sphere of rational being. It was not for this that they have plodded and plotted so long; and we doubt much whether, if they were able at last to make prize of the vessel of the state, their ineffable contempt would permit them to notice for the purposes of vengeance, even the author of so feeble and foolish an ebullition of insult to their cause.

This is not a season for middle and moderate courses-the country feels that it is not-and they can never hope for its confidence who stand upon neutral and treacherous ground. If all that the whigs had ever done could be buried in oblivion and remembered no more-if all their petty meannesses and political delinquencies in the times that are past, could be blotted out from the page of history-the shuffling and tremulous conduct which they have betrayed in the case of the most formidable enemies that have ever assailed their country's peace and honour, would consign them to present exclusion, and to future reproach. Moderation is magnanimous, only when the delinquent has confessed his sins, or is at the mercy of the avenger-but it is crouching and base, while the enemy maintains his lowering port; and, instead of imploring, threatens to extend an humiliating amnesty to the imaginary suppliant. Such is still the attitude of that radical reform which is rebellion, plunder, and interminable anarchy. The spirit of the whigs has been mingled with this most malignant spirit; and the foul commixture-if its offspring should be permitted to see the light will be found prolific only of preternatural crimes.

Every one indeed knows, that moderation is, in the abstract, a virtue, and that a theme is thereby furnished, quite inexhaustible to juvenile declamation, and to the mature imbecility which descends to mere schoolboy emulation. The moderation of the whigs, besides, as to all that combats existing authority, in whatever form---whether with the sharp, but polished weapons of the constitution,

or with the rude and poisoned instruments of jacobinism, is cheaply afforded on their parts---for they know well that the errors of their own profuse forbearance will be adequately corrected by the alacrity of those to whom the immediate protection of the state is committed. They know the part they have to play well enough, but they are apt to overact it. They know that if they should indiscreetly fan the flame of rebellion till it had glided over the ramparts of the constitution, their opponents, not themselves, would be responsible for its opportune extinction; and much of their giddy tampering and wantonness, therefore, is most ungenerously hazarded, in the confidence that the very power which they assail will be able to avert its consequences. But their wild and heedless conduct in opposition is of small consequence, compared with the question as to their accession to power,and after what the country has seen as to their countenance, direct and indirect, of the cabals which menace its existence, we cannot suppose that it will pass the serious thought of a moment upon their claims. Will the property, rank, and talent of the nation, submit to have their fate disposed of by men who have avowedly fraternised-or who pant at any rate for the alliance of those who are the confederated enemies of all existing power, and all honourable distinction ? Will they voluntarily cast their fortunes into the hands of persons who, by their own confession, have planted themselves on the very confines of the rebel and outcast regions, and stand but midway betwixt treason and loyalty? We believe this is neither the cast of character which the times require, nor that which the hopes and wishes of the British people demand.

If the whigs, however, had actually been successful in their late arduous attempt, we cannot imagine that a greater misfortune could have been inflicted upon them than this success. What would they have done when in office, with all their recent pledges as an opposition, with their memorable and unceasing denunciations of the course of measures adopted during the last Session of Parliament, for the conservation of the public peace, with their recorded asseverations, that there was no ground to justify alarm,

and that all the measures adopted by the legislature, were mere artifice, cunning, and oppression? Would they venture to repeal these acts, not abridging, but truly defining the privileges of British subjects-and that, too, while discontent, impatient and scowling, yet meets them at every cornerand enthroned in popular delusion, menaces more than ever the tranquillity of the state? Would they dare, with the entire array of the Queen's addressers before them, breathing revenge and revolution, to relax the vigour of the law, as it was created before radicalism had assumed the aspect of chivalry, so uncongenial to its nature, and become ennobled in appearance by the generous defence of a woman and a Queen?

Never, indeed, was there so fortunate an accident, as the arrival of this illustrious personage upon English ground, to lift low-born, malignant, and savage profligacy from its native level—or to give it the semblance and sanction of generous virtue. The people have, beyond all question, been tainted by this novel and interesting exhibition; they have been corrupted and maddened by the arts of those who would sacrifice the Queen with the most undisturbed cheerfulness, provided only they could gain a glance of office and authority by the treacherous immolation.- Who, we would ask, are at this moment the most vehement and active of the Queen's friends? There is Sir Robert Wilson, the gallant, but spurious knight, of whose equestrian dignity the sharpest questioning has not been able to elicit the authentication; a person so enamoured of sedition, that after making his first essay of service in foreign lands, he has returned to his native country to head the legions of tumult-a thorough renegade, who, from the most abusive libeller of the "child and champion of Jacobinism,” has crept into the meanness, not only of panegyrizing, but of protecting and serving its vilest slaves. The member for Southwark is, indeed, a sad example of the fortunes of radicalism, and a brief, but touching, epitome of the instability of human will.

Then comes the worthy alderman, who, from the repose of civic honours, has been summoned to undertake a prominent part in the mysteries of a court. The royal presence must

be profusely sported with, and wantonly degraded indeed, when a citizen buffoon of this description is permitted to hold the nearest and the highest places to it-and by a palpable violation of the laws of our social existtence, is transformed at once, in the strength of mere pertness and audacity, from the most plebeian vocations, to a region where polish and manners were once held indispensable. The other friends and champions of her Majesty, in the encounter which she has for months been maintaining with the law and institutions of the land, are hardly worth mentioning-and it is only with a view to the part which the whigs have acted on this occasion, that we have deigned to notice the subject at all.

This once formidable, but now shattered party, may scruple perhaps to admit the Woods and Wilsons, and Hobhouses and Felloweses, as belonging to their band-but they can never deny, that--by a singular—even if it should be an unpremeditated coincidence of opinion-they have, upon this noisy, although truly unimportant question, done all that was in their power to exemplify a perfect combination with these worthies. Here they have marched in line with the radicals--they have fought side by side with them, and admitted themselves to be a part of the same invasive host -against which, if the better sentiment and nobler resolution of the country has maintained itself with decisive firmness, the defensive victory is surely to be ascribed to any class of men, rather than to those of whom Mr Tierney is the nominal head, who declared against the Queen by sullen and sordid anticipation--and made the mere floating rumours against her, a ground for announcing his resolution to deprive her even of her small pecuniary claims, while, with devious policy, he now insists on loading her with honours. Without Tierney and Earl Grey, the whigs are nothing-they could not pretend to form an administration, nor, indeed, any other rational scheme of union-and while these potent leaders, by the part which they have taken in the case of the Queen, have made themselves accessories after or it may be before the fact-to the countless insults which that unhappy lady has offered to the constitution

of the country, and have embodied themselves with her betrayers, known and unknown-we should like to understand what degree of confidence in their councils, that portion of the people could repose, who have the most substantial interest in repelling all violence and innovation-who have a pre-eminent right to be heard on so great a question-who will be heard too-and must finally prevail?

But it is unnecessary to argue a question which the legislature has already decided, and upon which the final seal of the representative wisdom of the nation has, perhaps, been set, while we are committing to paper these hasty reflections. The dream of the whigs has passed away-their sanguine hope and boundless pretension have been withered while in their highest bloom-the frown of a people's displeasure, expressed by the organ which the constitution has appointed, has already descended like a frost upon their new-blown hopes, and left them to dissolution and decay. To the whigs this world's ambition is all vanity; and their panting and toiling after its enjoyments, in spite of the despair that is set before them, is a proof of superabundant and miraculous zeal, such as no faction has ever before set even in the most heated and hopeful contentions. It is well, indeed, for them to turn in their dismay from the people's representatives to the aggregate constituent body itself, and to reclaim with their wonted violence from the sense and spirit which disown them to the deluded turbulence on which their final hope is rested. They would fain postpone their doom, or escape from the notoriety of its infliction, by appealing from the representative intelligence of Britain to the grosser elements out of which it is extracted,

and casting themselves for support upon the plebeian insolence which their own arts have evoked, deny the competency of the legislature to award the decree of exclusion which it has given against them. Lord Holland had the modesty to say at the London Fox dinner, that in the expediency question as to the Liturgy, which was so manfully proposed by his friends, he had discovered three hundred and ten reasons for Parliamentary Reform; a stupid and pointless joke at the best, but, in this particular case, indicative