expect the notice of a personage, who, though of not quite princely rank, could have told a much more amusing story,-described specimens' of a higher order than barmaids-pecuniary incidents more important than the loss of a ten-pound note out of a sac-de-nuit, and even wound up his picture of insular existence' with an interesting appendix to the Mémoires d'un Homme d'Etat.' ART. IX.-1. Reply to a Pamphlet entitled, Speech of the Right Hon. Lord Brougham, delivered in the House of Lords, on Friday, Oct. 7. Second edition. 1831. 2. A Letter to the Farmers of the United Kingdom. From B. Escott, Esq. Second edition. 1831. 3. What will be done with the Lords? Second edition. 1831. 4. What have the Lords done? and What will they do next? 1831. 5. Householders in Danger from the Populace. By Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Esq. 1831. 6. Two Letters on the State of Public Affairs. From a Member of Parliament to a Friend Abroad. 1831. 7. Great Britain in 1841, or the Results of the Reform Bill. Second edition. 1831. 8. A Short History of the House of Commons, with reference to Reform. By John Allen, Esq. 1831. 9. Progress of the Revolutions of 1640 and 1830. N avowing our conviction, that the state of anarchy into which society appeared a few weeks ago to be rapidly falling, (would we could say, from which it has escaped!) was the fruit of misgovernment, the direct, natural, and necessary result of the acts and omissions of ministers,-it can scarcely, we suppose, be requisite, that we should disclaim any intention of holding up those dignified persons to the world, as the deliberate instigators or abettors of burning and massacre. Such a charge, if ever it should be made, we should not regard much more seriously than the insinuation gravely put forth by more than one of the Whig papers, that a Tory conspiracy was at the bottom of the Bristol riots. Whatever may be our estimation of the moral and political virtues of his Majesty's counsellors, we have always given them credit for a reasonable degree of attention to their own personal interests; and who could suspect them of indulging a notion so besotted, as that those interests could in any way be advanced by scenes from which human nature recoils? They desired, indeed, agitation ;-agitation to the extent necessary for their purposes, for crying up the bill, shaking the constancy of the the lords and bishops, and preserving their own supremacy at court; such agitation they desired, courted, and promoted. They desired just so much agitation and no more; but they were content rather to take the hazard of more, than to have none at all. Their generous minds the fair ideas drew Of fame and honour which in dangers lay- Not to be gathered but by birds of prey.'-DRYden. Scarcely, however, had the Lords pronounced their verdict, ere all the elements of mischief were at work ;-the minions of the Whig press set up a war-cry enough to fright the isle from its propriety;'--denunciations the most daring and seditious were hawked about the streets and placarded on every wall;-and, to pass over, as of inferior importance, even the fearful scenes of Nottingham, Derby, &c., the SYSTEM of associating the jacobinical fanatics of the middle and lower orders in Political Unious received a new impulse. The mutual coquettings, the repeated public interchanges of civility between members of the cabinet and those high confederacies, from the lofty premier's first apologetic correspondence with the Birmingham council about that sad inadvertence' in the construction of the qualification clause, to the midnight scene which exhibited this first of Place-men Swallowing with open mouth a tailor's news,' and the discreet and adulatory epistles of Lord John Russell and the Chancellor of the Exchequer,-all these demonstrations naturally impressed the public mind with a belief, that those societies were viewed with an eye of peculiar complacency by the Government! Journals professing to be in the confidence of the ministry, called aloud for the formation of more Unions, in order to support Lord Grey, and enable him to carry the Bill;-and if they did so without the authority or in opposition to the real wishes of their patrons, it is rather remarkable, that the moment the Government found it necessary to turn a little round and make an effort to cast off the connexion, those same journals should from that very instant have become silent, and, in one instance (we believe), should even have seen reason to deprecate and decry the very combinations which they had been so instrumental in raising. The first call, however, was answered; and a multitude of new societies sprung up in consequence in different parts of the country. On the 31st of October, a meeting of the populace was held in Lincoln's Inn Fields, for the purpose of constituting a grand National Political Union, in which the middle and working classes of the metropolis were to join together, and of which Sir Francis Burdett had consented to become the chairman, at the solicitation, as has been confidently asserted, of Earl Grey! For the truth of this assertion we do not pretend to vouch; but it is worthy of remark, that no contradiction has ever been given to the statement, though another story, with which it was in the first instance coupled, about Lord John Russell having subscribed a sum of money in aid of the Union at Birmingham, was eagerly and indignantly denied. However, even if the Noble Premier has identified the parentage of the Political Unions with the policy of his cabinet by this crowning act of indiscretion, he may console himself-he has done nothing but what is in perfect consonance with a principle which enters deeply into the whole scheme of the Whig creed,-which has become grafted into the very nature of the older factionaries of the party, by dint of habits inseparable from that false position in which they have been pining away their political lives,-and which, furnishing, as it often does, a plausible plea to weak and well-intentioned men brought up in a better school, for consulting their fears, their scruples, and their love of ease-for conciliating, conceding, and temporising-has been of more real disservice to the constitutional cause than the most venomous efforts of its avowed assailants. His lordship acted doubtless from a conscientious belief in the approved doctrine, that the best way of moderating a great political movement is to give way to it ;-just as if a torrent could be stayed by adding to its volume, or as if the multitude of givers-way did not in fact constitute in such cases the whole danger. Well. The Political Union beings embodied, it remained only that they should be organized and armed, and the business was done-let but those points be gained, thought they, and we are at once and for ever masters of the state. An effort, a most strenuous effort for this, was not wanting ;-nay more, it had very nearly succeeded; and it may be questioned if it has yet failed. It was sustained by the utmost power of that very portion of the press which had just before been urging the formation of the Unions. And it will scarcely be credited in after times, that such was the pitch of license which that press had obtained under the fostering wing of a liberal government,-so close on the brink of anarchy was the nation already standing, without having yet passed through an ordeal of actual revolution,-that those very journals, those professed partisans of the administration, openly, and day after day, avowed, in express terms, that one of their objects in desiring such an organization and armament, was to control the executive government,-to restrain his Majesty from the exercise of his prerogative, in case it should be his pleasure to change hereafter his constitutional advisers,-and to resist, in short, by force, force, the authority of any cabinet less prepared than the present to run with them the full career of revolution;-nay, further, that these avowals were permitted to pass, unpunished-unchidden -unnoticed-and that, for aught which appears to the contrary, their authors are to this day recognized as the allies, if not, indeed, the organs of Downing-street!-In the Times of the 1st of November, we find the following passage:-After contending for the expediency of forming the householders of all classes throughout the kingdom (not excluding even the lowest) into Political Unions, -first, in order to promote the successful issue of the reform question, secondly, with a view to strengthen the magisterial power for the suppression of riots, -the writer proceeds to recommend the measure for a third purpose, namely, for the establishment of an organized, and, if necessary, an armed body, coextensive with the rank and intelligence, the property and regular industry (the latter being the most valuable description of property !!!) in the nation, as a safeguard against the 'tyrannical attempts of FACTION ARRAYED IN POWER on one side, and of faction aiming at the overthrow of constituted authority on the other!'-But even this was mere innuendo, compared with the language of the Morning Chronicle. 'If Reform,' we read in that journal of the 19th November, if Reform be carried without delay, well and good; but if any unforeseen difficulty occur, the Unions bring the FORCE OF AN UNITED PEOPLE instantly to bear on the DEPOSITORIES OF POWER.' . . The people do not unite against the present Government, but to be ready to meet the contingency of an adverse Government.' And again, in another number published near the same periodIt is no trifling matter To COMPEL A NATION TO DRAW THE SWORD. But, grievous as the consequences of a REVOLUTION would be, we hold them to be AS NOTHING COMPARED TO THE CALAMITY OF THE TRIUMPH OF THE BOROUGHMONGERS,' ... The object of the Unions now forming is the preservation of the peace' [how very considerate!] of the country against the two classes of incendiaries now leagued together, for purposes of plunder, the boroughmongers and the lowest of the rabble.'* Matters on all sides were by this time putting on a sufficiently black aspect; and, though Ministers had neither the virtue nor the energy to cast off the thraldom of their disgraceful alliance with the immediate agents of the mischief, and manfully to confront the emergency, there is no reason to suppose that they were now *There was something more absurd at least, if not more outrageous, than even these extravagancies of the daily press, in the effrontery of a quarterly journal,-conducted, we believe, by a gentleman in the actual employment of government, which very gravely set about proving to its readers, that a general armament, or some such thing, had become indispensable, in order to guard against the imminent danger of a Tory rebellion!! See the last Number of the Westminster Review. contemplating contemplating the scene with unmixed serenity. It began to be There was no mistaking the objects, immediate or prospective, 1 |