dazzles its followers into blindness: but the word of God can never deceive its promises can never fail-its lessons can never betray. Its maxims of duty, its examples of national ruin, and prophecies of coming glory-all speak to us with one consenting voice, and silence the clamours of short-sighted theorists by the authority of heaven. They teach us that agricultural industry and the culture of the heart, Christian faith, social charity, and moderation in the pursuits of trade, are the surest pledges of the divine blessing, and the sole pathway that can lead either men or nations to union, peace, plenty, and lasting greatness.

ART. X.-Speech of Sir Robert Peel on the Amendment to the Address of the House of Commons to the Queen. London: Painter. 1841.

2. Mr. Baillie Cochrane's Address to his Constituents at Bridport. London: Painter. 1841.

WHEN some great and signal benefit has befallen an individual, it often happens that he does not at first experience the full measure of his joy; his heart is glad, indeed, but his mind does not grasp the entire extent of the good imparted to him-he requires time to recover calmness, he will be happier after awhile. We think this common condition of individual feeling very much that of the nation on the accession of the present Administration to power. For ten weary years, a decade of mischief and misrule, every thoughtful man, to whom the cause of Christian truth and its diffusion through the world were dear, who was solicitous for the cultivation of sound learning and the maintenance of the olden institutions of England, sighed for the removal from power of men who, like a stately scoffer of an early age, "cared for none of these things." Year after year this desired event, which frequently seemed on the eve of consummation, was deferred by a series of tricks, breaches of promise, and shameless tergiversations, on the part of the Whigs, unprecedented in the annals of political profligacy; but their doom has at length been sealed by the fiat of an outraged and indignant people. Intense, we may truly say, is the joy felt at their downfal, though very differently is it expressed from that which wildly welcomed their elevation in 1830. The maniac phrensy and filthy indecencies of a group of lewd satyrs and drunken bacchanals furnish the only types of the rabble rout, in whose ranks, however, were mingled many who have since bitterly bewailed their temporary delusion, which clustered round the then triumphal cars of Lords Brougham and John Russell. But fitting is it that the serene satisfaction of Christian men exulting

2

in the restoration of order should differ in its demonstration from the mad ebullitions of plunderers gloating over the prospect of prey. That a something beyond an extension of the elective franchise, a something much resembling a division of booty, was contemplated by the "masses," as it was formerly Lord John Russell's pleasure to call the manufacturing population of England, whilst goaded by the reform cry, is proved, by the birth of Chartism and Socialism, beyond all cavil or dispute. The English people are by constitution a calm and unexcitable race-phlegmatic and indifferent, indeed, except in the very agonies of hunger; and never would they have been so ardent for Parliamentary Reform-never would they have risen against their kindest friends, the nobility, gentry, and clergy-neven would they have lifted their sacrilegious hands against the towers of the poor man's Church, which the Anglican branch of Christ's Visible Church undoubtedly is, if they had anticipated no other personal good than the acquisition of a vote, and no further national benefit than the substitution of sundry new Whig for certain ancient Tory boroughs. Surely Gatton was quite as respectable as, and incomparably more moral and quiet than, Great Grimsby. It may now suit the Pantologist Brougham, and the Brummagem letter-writer, John Russell, to veil their modest faces and protest they wished not to incite their listeners to deeds of havoc and of blood; but history will record indelibly on her pages the condemning fact that their breath fanned the fires which wrapped Bristol and Nottingham Castle in flames. But we are wrong in speaking of modesty and veils ; for, deep as is the guilt of these delinquents, we can trace in their conduct no signs of contrition. Lord Brougham, indeed, is now listened to with respect by none-he is universally derided, distrusted, or despised: but he hastened, when the storm was at its height, across the Channel, to revel amidst its howlings; his Gallic Tusculum has no charms to withhold the modern Cicero from the field of strife. Lord John Russell is still permitted to play a more actively mischievous part, as we will presently proceed to show; and, within a few hours of the time in which we are inditing this article, evinced in the House of Commons the same reckless disposition to agitate, in order that he might vent his rancour on an opponent, that he displayed to secure office in 1831, when he aroused the artizans of Birmingham to rebellion.

When last we addressed our readers, it was on the eve of a general election: right bly have the Conservatives of England responded to the appeal then made to them, and great, we repeat, is the joy diffused through the country, and we may add her colonies, at the result of their exertions, though its expression is subdued. But this again is as it ought to be, for it is

only a barbarian conqueror who spurns and mocks the vanquished. Truth, however, or at any rate our opinion of what is politically prudent, constrains us to confess that we cannot approve the first step taken by the Conservatives on the opening of the new Parliament. A political blunder, which is already felt, though its evil consequences are only partially developed, was committed in the re-election of the Speaker, at the instigation of him whom all England reveres, and all earth knowsthe Duke of Wellington. We yield to none in our admiration of that illustrious hero-there is no honour we would not heap upon him. No; let the embroidered banner wave in the hall over his laurelled head, while grateful nations do homage before him; but we dare not cry, as slavishly do some, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man!"

The circumstances attending Mr. Shaw Lefevre's re-election to the Speaker's chair are so recent that we will only briefly recapitulate them: but upon the consequences which have already ensued, and those which we clearly foresee will flow from that event, we must comment at greater length; for manifest as light to our eyes is it, that but for the position in which this re-election placed the retiring Whigs, a prime ingredient in the Russell cup of agitation would have been wanting. The Queen's name could not have been perverted to the purposes of faction, mischievously and wickedly used as a spell to evoke the spirits of disorder. Lord John Russell may yet die the death of the rash necromancer, torn by his disappointed and disobedient fiends; and if he does, no tear of pity will bedew his grave, while stern justice inscribes, for the admonition of posterity, upon his tomb

"Nec lex justior ulla est,

Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.' We cannot, however, dismiss, even for a short while, this worthy scion of a house whose generations, with one solitary exception, have presented, in alternate succession, sycophants or rebelscourt minions or mob agitators, without adding, that there is no proposition to be found in Lord John Russell's deliberate compositions which he has not acted counter to in practice-no profession of his earlier and better life which he has not violated in his maturer age-no promise made in seeking office which he has not broken since its attainment-no "wheel-about and turn-about " trick to retain his hold on place which he has not, with cool, unblushing brow, played off in the face of his country. We are prepared to justify our sentence by extracts from Lord John Russell's own books, contrasted with his official acts, and may take an early opportunity of doing so, that we may point to his

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lordship's own sayings and doings, and exclaim, "This, ye gentlemen of England, is the Leader of the Opposition, now marshalled before the hosts of infidelity and rebellion, to do battle against the armies of the Constitution." If we seem to any to dwell at undue length, and with somewhat of severity, on the ex-Colonial Secretary, our justification is, that we consider his plausibility, his perseverance, his powers of mischief, and his unscrupulous promptitude to use them, when party exigencies require their exercise, so dangerous, that we will pass by no occasion of setting his true character so palpably and broadly before his countrymen, that those who run may read it. But we will now return to a Whig of less repulsive aspect-the present Speaker of the House of Commons.

Mr. Shaw Lefevre, the member for North Hampshire, is, we understand, in private life, an estimable and excellent man-a near neighbour of the Duke of Wellington, with whom he is a great favourite, for his general good qualities, and also for his concurrence with his Grace's partiality for two measures, of which, with all deference, we think that illustrious individual is too fond-we mean the Rural Police Force, and the Poor Law Amendment Act, in all its Somerset House rigour. Before the opening of Parliament it was currently supposed that the struggle of strength would be on the election of Speaker, and that, upon the defeat of the Whig candidate-an inevitable eventthat party would resign, without preparing any Speech from the Throne-without, in short, perpetrating the indecent mockery of putting into the royal mouth propositions diametrically opposed to the well known sentiments of her Majesty's immediately in-coming Government. This would have been the regular ordinary course, which, in human affairs, is always the safest, and from which the country will probably have to regret that any deviation was made. Mr. Shaw Lefevre could not have felt it, familiar with party as he is, any personal affront; and the Whigs could not, with all their effrontery, have complained, when they remembered how they had served Lord Canterbury, after all the irksome toil he had undergone, at their request, in reducing their Reform rabble to order, licking the legislative cubs of Connaught, and other haunts of the wild, into parliamentary shape. Far be it from us to counsel Conservatives to take a leaf, as the phrase is, from their enemies' book— far be it from us to recommend, for the attainment of any object, any unkindly act which may inflict needless pain on any human being; never may that reckless disregard of all but party considerations, so characteristic of Whiggery, be imitated by the honourable champions of Christian Conservatism. But we

think the epithet, candid overmuch, may be fairly applied to many members on this occasion, who appeared for the moment to forget that the wisdom of the serpent is, by the highest of authorities, held up for our imitation, as well as the innocence of the dove. In all our conduct-political contest among the rest-we are forbidden to do evil that good may come; we are even told to give our enemy our cloak; but we are nowhere commanded to furnish him with arms. No doubt a great howl would have been emitted by the Whig press, the pitch-pipe wound by Mr. Coppock, at the hard-heartedness of turning out such a Speaker as Mr. Shaw Lefevre; but past experience ought by this time to have taught Conservatives the mingled folly and danger of yielding vantage ground or rights to conciliate opponents, or to escape the unpleasantness of clamorous

censure.

Before we write another line, we will pay the tribute of our respectful testimony to Mr. Shaw Lefevre's merits as a Speaker. His manners are bland and urbane-his general fairness in the chair is unimpeachable his knowledge of the law of Parliament, its privileges, and its practice, is considerable-and we have no reason to believe that a more honourable minded man has been returned to the present Parliament. Why, then, can we object to the re-election of a gentleman at once admitted to be amiable, just, and intelligent? For several reasons, mixed and personal. In the first place, Mr. Lefevre has been ever a steady, consistent, and able supporter of the party opposed to Conservative principles; and knowing as we do how unconsciously to themselves the minds of party men are bent to party preferences-knowing how deceitful are the hearts of the best among us-we would not have placed in the Speaker's chair a Whig, in principle opposed to a Government about to be assailed by a fierce and most unscrupulous Opposition. We conscientiously believe that the welfare of these realms depends, under Divine Providence, on the continuance of a Conservative Government in office; we would not, therefore, have lightly put aside any help to secure its permanence. And was it not rather a stretch of confidence to place a gentleman in the Speaker's chair whose early and personal predilections must make it needful for him ever to be on the watch, that he may not be unjust to those who sit on his right hand? We feel an entire persuasion that the present Speaker will strive to be just; but has his first important official act confirmed or impaired the confidence of the party who so generously committed their dearest interests to his keeping?

We say at once that we allude to the Speaker's appointment