appropriate name they may be known.-Notice is hereby given, That a Subscription has been entered into, to supply the PEOPLE with STAVES of a superior effect, either for defence or punishment, which will be in readiness to be gratuitously distributed whenever a similar unprovoked, and therefore unmanly and blood-thirsty attack, be again. made upon Englishmen, by a Force unknown to the British Constitution, and called into existence by a Parliament illegally constituted, legislating for their individual interests, consequently in opposition to the public good. "Put not your trust in princes."-David. "Help yourself, and Heaven will help you."-French Motto.' When parliament assembled, there was a general feeling that, considering the disturbed state of the country, the efforts of the anarchists here, the revolutionary movements on the Continent, and the possibility (as all admitted), not to say the likelihood, that however desirous of maintaining peace, we might be forced into a war, the Tories would rally round the Duke of Wellington's administration. It was thought also that the better part of the Whigs would take the same view of their situation as their predecessors had done in 1792; that they would reflect upon their stake in the land, and distinctly perceive that the struggle was not now between two political parties for the ministry, but between the mob and the government, between the conservative and the subversive principles, between anarchy and order. It was plainly impossible that the administration could proceed after the pitiable manner of the preceding session; and it was time that the appellations of Whig and Tory should be dropped, because they no longer designated the same differences of opinion which they had formerly denoted. There were but two parties in the country-that which sought to overthrow the constitution, and that which was resolved to support it in these broad distinctions, all minor ones must, sooner or later, be merged; and this truth could not be recognised too soon for the constitutional cause and the general good. But the Tories would not forgive what it was impossible for them to forget; and some of them had acted unwisely in their resentment, intemperately, and inconsistently with the just principles on which that resentment itself was founded; and the Whigs still persevered in their old system of traducing the ministry, misinterpreting their declarations, misrepresenting their intentions, and seeking by all means to bring them into hatred and contempt. No upright man could doubt, no sensible one could mistake the views of the administration; that it was their desire to preserve peace, their duty to be prepared for war; to uphold the character of Great Britain abroad, and to maintain its institutions and laws at home; but but there was a want of concert in their language, if not in their intentions;—and, being unexpectedly left in the minority upon an unimportant question, they took that opportunity of resigning office-to the satisfaction of all parties; but far more, it may be believed, to their own, than that of those who succeeded them. Behold, then, the Whigs, as Whigs, and as a party, in full possession of the government! A French poet has given us the Dramatis Persona in verse : President, Lord Lansdowne; Premier, Lord Comte Grey; Mnemonic lines, reminding us of Ut sunt divorum, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, virorum, though we know not where to look for gods and Catos in the list. The parts indeed may seem to have been oddly cast. We have heard it remarked, that every person in this arrangement seems to have been felicitously appointed to the place for which he was least fitted. Sir James Graham, because he had made the subject of finance his particular study, was made First Lord of the Admiralty; and Lord Althorp, who, for his father's sake, would have been a fit and acceptable person at the Admiralty, was selected for Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the House of Commons, because he has no gift of speaking; Lord Palmerston, because he has committed himself more than any other person upon the affairs of Portugal, must be at the head of the Foreign Department; Mr. Wynn goes to the War-office, because he is accustomed to the business of the Board of Control. Two Lambs are sent to the Home Department, because two Watch-dogs are wanted there; and because the most conciliatory temper, and the most affable disposition were necessary in the person who should manage an administration, of whom scarcely any three were in accord upon any one of the great questions which must perforce come under their deliberation therefore, Earl Grey became the Premier, who was to keep them all in good humour! One other appointment must be noticed, that of Lord Brougham and Vaux to the Woolsack! and yet this, the excellent unfitness of which was pre-eminently apparent, may possibly be that which of all the others may be best jus *The French poet observes, that Brougham and Graham rhyme very well in English; the former being pronounced Broume and the latter Greme. tified in the result. The talents of that extraordinary person may be as efficient for good, as they have heretofore been for evil. He has a stirring soul; Whatever it attempts or labours at Would wear out twenty bodies in another.' He is now on the conservative side, and in a position which raises him above the mists of faction, And let it ever be borne in mind, that change of position always, to a certain degree, brings with it a change of view. Men in administration, at this time, whether Whig or Tory, must, we are willing to believe, have the same interest, and aim at the same end;-that of the public safety and the public good. There is no occasion to suppose in them any extraordinary degree of patriotism or private virtue,—as mere men, and public ones, their interest and their duty coincide. Being sane men, they can take no other course, no other is possible for them. The age of jobbing is past; were ministers as profligate as such persons were in the days of Bubb Doddington, they could not act in the same manner, because whatever they do is known and scrutinized; they are under the public eye,-an eye which is anything rather than indulgent: so far, therefore, as good conduct proceeds from good intentions, it is to be presumed on in any ministry, and credit ought accordingly to be given them. The present ministry have to extricate themselves from the nets which they have laid for others, but in which they are now taken; much is to be unsaid, that they have said; much to be undone, that they have done, or compelled others to do; much to be done which they would have prevented the former administration from doing. Their opponents will not seek to render this more unpalatable than it must needs be, neither will they place any embarrassments in their way; and there are no difficulties or dangers before them but what wisdom and courage may remove or overcome. As the right old royalist exhorted his son to stand by the crown, though it should be hanging upon a bush, so ought the conservative party to stand by the government at this time. They will lend no aid to ruinous reductions, unjust retrenchments, or rash experiments; but they will not act upon the tactics of a factious opposition; they will cordially support them in those strong measures which the situation not only of Ireland but of England calls for, and they will not oppose any such alterations in the system of representation as may be made without danger, and with the fair probability of removing some evil, or producing some good. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-A Year in Spain. By a Young American. London, 2 vols. 12mo. 1831. IN N this restless and roving age, this age of expeditions to Timbuctoo and the Pole, when the uttermost ends of the earth have been explored, and its most secret places unveiled, it is a matter of surprise that a country comparatively near at home should yet remain to be described. It is a land, too, of adventure and romance, full of historic, and poetic, and legendary association; yet, withal, a kind of terra incognita-a mysterious realm, untravelled by the crowd, and where the far wandering foot' of the all pervading Englishman but seldom rambles. The stream of sleek tourists, of burly citizens, with their wondering wives, their half gawky, half dandy sons, and their novel-struck, poet-ridden daughters, with albums, portfolios, and drawing-books—that incessant and overwhelming stream, which inundates all the rest of Europe, is turned off and completely repelled by the mountain barrier of Spain. The frightful stories of Spanish blunderbusses and Spanish knives, of robbers on the highways, and assassins in the streets, of rugged roads and comfortless inns, of bigotry, priestcraft, poverty, dirt, vermin, and all other kinds of dangers, evils, and annoyances, with which the tedium of the tabled'hôte is beguiled, deter the crowd of gentlemen and ladies who travel at their ease,' from venturing into that land of peril. Hence it is rare indeed, that the well hung, well peopled, and well victualled production of Long-acre is seen rolling down the southern declivities of the Pyrenees; and those trophies of cockney comfort and cockney domination, the beef-steak and the tea-kettle, which infallibly mark the progress of John Bull, and have been introduced even into Greece and the Holy Land, are as yet unknown in the ventas and posadas of the Peninsula. We are pleased, therefore, to meet with a work which gives us a familiar peep into that unhackneyed country, though we doubt whether some of the scenes and adventures recorded in the present volumes will not have the effect of still more increasing the beforementioned disinclination of the comfort-loving and cautious traveller. -The author has modestly withheld his name, through diffidence, it would appear, of the success of this, his maiden production. Happening, VOL. XLIV. NO. LXXXVIII. Y |