manœuvres. He cannot be aware of the delicacy that is required in dealing with courts-martial and their decisions. In a word, he is altogether unfit for the office, which his enemies, and those of our royal mistress, say that he aspires to; and no man in the three kingdoms can be more fully satisfied of the fact than himself. We, therefore, dismiss this rumour, as we have done the idle tale about the crown-matrimonial, not only as a thing incredible, but impertinent. Prince Albert is all that the people of England wish him to be, where he is. But were he to be pushed by any influence whatever out of the retirement which best becomes the husband of the queen, his popularity would soon make to itself wings and flee away; if results, much more mischievous, did not arise from the proceeding.

We come now to a third report, of which The Times may be said, in some degree, to be the originator; that there were divisions in the cabinet on the subject of the Corn-laws, so wide, so irreconcileable, that it was found impossible for the sections to hold any longer together. Now, here again, it appears to us that there must be some great mistake. That the cabinet, worked upon by the apprehensions of a scarcity, the extent of which, designing persons, for their own purposes, had grossly magnified, may have taken, and probably did take, the subject of the Corn-laws into consideration, we are not disposed to doubt. It was a proceeding so obviously consecutive on the cry which suddenly arose, that had the cabinet failed to come into it, they would have been very much to blame. But how any reasonable man can believe that Sir Robert Peel, in the face of recent declarations to the contrary, would propose to the cabinet an entire and unconditional repeal of the laws which regulate the importation of corn and other articles of food into this country, does indeed surprise us. Nor is this all. Sir Robert, we are told, proposed an absolutely free trade in corn; the Duke of Wellington refused to budge an inch beyond the present sliding-scale; the question was put to the vote, Sir Robert was left in the minority; and the cabinet flew forthwith into splinters.

Is this probable? Is it likely that Sir Robert Peel and the Duke would so far forget what was due to themselves, and to their sovereign, as to quarrel outright on a subject so complicated; and in their wrath impose upon the queen the task of finding new advisers, at a moment when they must have known that themselves, and only themselves, could carry on the affairs of the government? We think not; and we should be extremely sorry to do otherwise. At the same time it is evident that some extraordinary difficulty did present itself somewhere. But as we shall never know either wherein it consisted, or by what happy process it has been overcome, till the parties most immediately affected by it speak out, we must therefore be content for the present with shewing cause why, in our opinion, it would be rash, in the absence of better proof than a newspaper report, to look upon Sir Robert Peel as the sort of rash traitor which a few rash speakers in public places have had the bad taste as well as bad manners to represent him.

It is not fair in this year of grace, 1845, to twit Sir Robert Peel with the Roman Catholic triumph of 1829, far less to make his proceeding on that occasion the standard by which to estimate his character as a moralist in politics. Sir Robert Peel was not the prime mover in that arrangement. Whether it were a wise or an unwise measure, the merit of devising, and arranging, and carrying it through, belongs exclusively to the Duke of Wellington. Sir Robert Peel was the mere journeyman of his grace; and by no means a zealous journeyman either. It is ridiculous, also, to compare the state of public feeling, at least in the two houses of parliament, as it bore upon the question of 1829, with the state of public feeling in both houses of parliament in regard to the abolition of the Corn-laws. The Emancipation-bill had passed the Commons over and over again, and was as sure to pass, yet again and again, as it might be reintroduced. In the Lords, too, the opposition diminished from year to year. Indeed, so rapid was the falling away, that, unless our memory be in fault, the last time that the Upper House refused to

sanction what the Lower had proposed to them, the bill was thrown out by an inconsiderable majority of fifteen. Moreover, of these fifteen peers several avowed their intention of voting, when next it should be brought forward, in favour of the measure. It cannot, therefore, be said, that however daringly he may have outraged the religious prejudices of the British people, even the Duke of Wellington put any unnecessary restraint upon the two Houses of Parliament in carrying his Catholic Emancipation Act. And as to Peel, it is no longer a secret that he resisted the making a cabinet question of the measure as long as he could; that he would have withdrawn from the cabinet sooner than be a party to the plan, had not the Duke in some measure constrained him to abide. But how stands the case now ? Whatever may be the opinions of men out of doors, there is no disputing the fact that the present House of Commons is, by a great majority, made up of members who stand pledged to their constituencies to protect the agricultural interests. The Lords, likewise, are, almost to a man, opposed to any further interference with the Corn-laws; indeed, there needed all the skill of Peel and all the moral influence of Wellington to lead their lordships forward, even amid the dangers of 1842, to the point at which they no longer make a secret that they are determined to stop. Are we to suppose that Sir Robert Peel, knowing all this, knowing that it was the agricultural constituencies which brought him into office-his fixed duty scheme and nothing else having sent Lord John Russell into opposition-are we to suppose that Sir Robert Peel, with these truths patent before him, has ever meditated a step so wild as the recommendation by the crown of an unconditional and immediate repeal of the Corn-laws? The idea is quite monstrous. Sir Robert may regret, as many other good and wise men do, that such laws ever had existence. He may wish that it were possible to get rid of them, and cherish the belief that their repeal would effect changes neither so ruinous as their advocates apprehend, nor so advantageous for commerce as is assumed by their assailants. But

he cannot fail to be aware, that to repeal them in the lump is not possible, except on peril of the very existence of the constitution. Now

Sir Robert Peel may be as resolute a politician as you please, but he is not a revolutionist. He is not prepared to array one House of Parliament against the other, even if he were sure of carrying the Commons along with him, far less to coerce the Lords by pitchforking or threatening to pitchfork 100 members at the least into the chamber. Yet, without some such procedure, we question whether any minister would be able to carry a bill for free trade in corn n; for we know that a good hundred peers at least would be necessary to equalise the strength of parties in the upper house of parliament.

Again, it is no secret to Sir Robert Peel, that however free he may stand in his own person from all pledges one way or another, his party accepted him for their leader, and followed him with an enthusiasm which has no parallel in the history of political warfare-for this single reason, that they put faith in him as the advocate of the views fiscal, religious, and economic-which they themselves entertained. Had their confidence in regard to these matters been less surely fixed, there would have been no rally worth the name from the defeat of 1833. Doubtless the incapacity of the Melbourne administration to carry on the detail business of the country must have made itself felt sooner or later; and, in the common course of things, the powers of the executive would have passed from one set of hands to another, till somebody was found of sufficient judgment to wield them. But there would have been no such industry or ready expenditure of time and money in watching the registration courts, and seeing that the lists of voters were full, as has brought us round, in point of public feeling, well-nigh to what we used to be ere the Reform Act passed. Sir Robert Peel cannot forget this; no, nor the one great rallying cry which achieved it. He has tried his party pretty well, it must be confessed. They have given up much for him in various ways-much of Protestant prejudice, since it is the fashion so to speak of that which our fathers used

to call a holy principle; consenting to his Charitable Bequests-bill, to his Maynooth Endowment-bill, and bearing with astonishing fortitude the liberalism which dismisses gentlemen from the bench of magistrates on no other grounds than that their attachment to the constitution in Church and State is excessive. They have seen the amount of protection offered to the British corn-grower cut down to a figure which no other statesman than he could have presented, and are suffering, some of them not very patiently, under the pressure of an income-tax which they owe to his boldness. Let them have reason to apprehend that he means to go farther, and there will be an end at once to their confidence. And then where is he--ay, and where is the country? Sir Robert Peel knows all this. He may regret that the public temper should be what it is. He may feel the restraints of party gall and bamper him sorely, and, in his more earnest moments, he may come to the determination of breaking through them. But he cannot break through them. Neither he nor any other man living can govern this great country except by a party, for the attempt to do otherwise will overwhelm in one common ruin both the individual who makes it and the constitution.

Lastly, Sir Robert Peel has some knowledge of human nature, and does not, therefore, need us to tell him that men who cannot be brought to fight for any thing else, will fight like lions for their breeches-pockets. Now the agriculturists may be right or they may be wrong, but it is past dispute that the conviction has established itself among them, that the repeal of the Corn-laws would reduce the incomes of landowners by one-third at the least, besides throwing an immense quantity of the land of the country out of cultivation. We know, indeed, of our personal knowledge, many tenantsat-will, the occupiers of enormous farms, who are so satisfied of the mischievous working of a repeal measure, that nothing would induce them to accept at this moment leases from their landlords.

Own

Their argu

ment is this, "We are doing well enough now; and, if we could be insured against any further tampering with the Corn-laws, we should

be happy to engage to pay the same amount of rent that we are paying now, for as many years as our landlords might propose; but, whether rightly or wrongly, we are convinced of the impossibility of competing, on our present terms, with the foreign grower, and are, therefore, prepared to throw up our farms the moment the ports are opened, and to live in idleness till things find their level." Now, with such a prospect before them, is it reasonable to expect that the landlords of England will consent, whether they be peers or commoners, to an immediate and total repeal of the Corn-laws? Can they afford to exist on two-thirds of their present income, making good the engagements to which their estates are liable? and if they could, who will undertake to guarantee even twothirds of their income from the outset? No one. A sudden opening of the ports, an abrupt repeal of the Corn-laws, would tend as surely to anarchy for awhile as the wiping out of the national debt; and five years of anarchy, through the throwing up of leases or the breaking of tenants and we cannot anticipate less - would suffice to make beggars of the representatives of all the best families in the kingdom. Can it surprise us to learn that the landlords are determined to resist a sudden repeal to the death? and seeing that in their ruin the ruin of the peasants, at all events, must be involved, is the driving of such a body of men to desperate measures a contingency to be thought of without horror?

Whatever changes Sir Robert Peel's plan may involve- that is, supposing him to have a plan in preparation-we are on these grounds satisfied that he cannot contemplate either the unconditional or the immediate repeal of laws amid which all the domestic arrangements of all the landed proprietors and cultivators of the kingdom have for the last five-and-thirty years been formed. And we come to this conclusion, not only from contemplating the effects which such a procedure must have upon the social condition of a very large portion of our population, but from a perusal of the arguments of those who endeavour, by fair means and by foul, to push the change onwards. Whatever our private opi

of

nions may be in regard to the wisdom of a protective system in connexion with the corn-trade, we can never consent that the policy of England's prime minister shall be forced upon him by the Anti-Corn-Law League; and we are inclined to believe that the majority of the aristocracy the Whig aristocracy not less than of the Tory-are of our way of thinking. Messrs. Cobden and Bright, in the fervour of their anticipated triumph, let out a little too much for the good of the cause which they advocate, at the great Covent Garden meeting. The English people entertain a profound respect for the hereditary peerage; they would not exchange so noble an institution even for Mr. Cobden's services, were he called to the queen's councils, and invited to bring in an abolition-bill as Secretary of State for the Home Department to-morrow. Besides, the people of England must be more gullable than we take them to be, if they are persuaded to believe that an order of things can be very injurious to trade and manufactures under which the great apostle of the repeal of the Corn-laws has contrived to work his way from the condition of a poor farmer's son in Sussex, to the ownership of mills, the profits on which are rated to the income-tax at an amount so enormous, that we are really afraid to particularise it.

And now a word or two to all right thinking men,-to those among our readers who value the country's well-being above such minor considerations as the question who shall or who shall not preside in her majesty's councils, and be called prime minister. We witnessed with regret the unbecoming haste with which, immediately The Times' rumour got afloat, some who ought to have known better proceeded at once to condemn and denounce the recreant premier. This was neither just nor wise. Sir John Tyrrell, and other equally respectable, though somewhat hot-tempered gentlemen, have no ground as yet none with which we, at least are acquaintedfor coming to the conclusions at which, with extraordinary precipitation, they arrived. They would have done

better had they waited, as we recommended others of the party to do, till Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues-who continue in office, and their friends who quit it-shall have made their explanations. If, indeed, The Times be correct in its assumptions, then each man, whether a member of parliament or not, will be free to take his own line. The unflinching advocates for protection will, of course, resist whatever attempts are made to diminish or in any other way to interfere with it; while such of them as take pleasure in dealing out hard names and bitter words may, with a better grace than now, give license both to their pens and to their tongues. At the same time one point there is peculiar to the crisis at which we have arrived, which seems to demand their serious attention. Supposing they defeat Sir Robert Peel, and drive him out of office (no hard matter to do, it would appear, seeing that he would have voluntarily resigned, if he had been permitted), are they perpared with any one to take his place, who shall prove at once acceptable to the crown, and of sufficient weight, personal or otherwise, to go down with the constituencies? They cannot look to the Whigs, that is clear. The Whigs have done their best to form an administration, and failed; neither, we presume, will they condescend to make terms with Mr. Cobden, or Mr. Bright, or Mr. O'Connell. Will the Duke of Richmond be invited to form an administration? and if he do, will the country support him?

We cannot tell, but this much we venture to hope, that the actual measures of the existing cabinet will be found much less alarming than the sanguine on either side anticipate; and, at all events, we advise our readers to suspend their judgments, as we here undertake to suspend our own, till the mystery in which the proceedings of the last month are involved shall be dispelled; and there are some sure grounds on which either to support or to condemn the man whom, for ten years and more, the great Conservative party has, both in opposition and in power, honoured as its champion.

In one of Lord Byron's MS. diarics, begun at Ravenna, May 1821, he makes this entry,-" What shall I write? Another journal? Any thing that comes uppermost, and call it My Dictionary." The project died in the thinking. Whether the bow was not well bent, or the quiver had been exhausted in other forays, we know not, but the author never carried his incursion beyond A. Like other bold invaders, he was stopped by the elements. The interruption of the plan is certainly to be regretted. We should have received many brilliant sayings and much hardihood of criticism and philosophy. The prose of Byron was very often better than his verse, more fluent, natural, and idiomatic; vigorous, yet elastic; and masculine, yet musical. The framework, moreover, was well adapted to his pencil. He could stretch or contract it to his canvass. Every letter might be a picture, copious and magnificent as a Veronese, or minute and delicate as a Mieris. Lockhart once recommended a similar shape to his excursive friend Sir Egerton Brydges. He might have adopted it with advantage, and given us, to our delight and improvement, the gossip of Wal

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CXCIV.

pole, the criticism of Warton, and the fancy of Collins.

It seems difficult to brand any article save one with the mark of utter exclusion, and that is dulness, in every form and under every aspect, from the beginning to the end of the alphabet. It must not be suffered to creep in through D, or steal upon us with a sweet surprise in the murmurs of S. No column will keep the field with this symbolical letter in the ranks. Miserable in itself, it is fatal to its companions. It will ensure the defeat of a whole army of eloquence and learning. The most brilliant music of the fancy fails to attract our attention when it has been completely benumbed. Pope might have read in vain the rape of Mrs. Fermor's lock to an audience whom Dennis had been lecturing upon poetry. The saying of Haller is true in literature, whatever it may be in physics, and we are assuredly deaf when we are yawning.

There can be no doubt that Byron was in the full enjoyment of the prophetic eye of taste when he sketched this faint image of a new dictionary. Writing at Ravenna, he was really in Regent Street. The doctrine of

K