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been, in this instance, as much overborne by the coalition as the King and the Peerage.

This is a fact so notorious as to require no other evidence than the notoriety itself; indeed, it is a fact of which notoriety is the best of all evidence ;-and we are ready-waving for the moment all nicer constitutional doctrines, all the theoretic balances of De Lolme and Blackstone-to put the whole question on this issue-Had Sir Robert Peel, or had he not, the support and confidence of the BRITISH NATION?

Amidst the effulgence of proof of the affirmative of this proposition which blazes upon every eye, there are one or two circumstances not unworthy of particular notice. The tendencies of a free press are democratical, and it requires a strong conviction in the writers themselves, and a strong sympathetical disposition in the people whom they address, to render them, in any great proportion, advocates of the prerogative of the Crown and the power of a minister. Yet what is the state of the public press at this moment? Why, a positive majority of the organs of public opinion, and an immense preponderance of their influence, have pronounced decidedly for Sir Robert Peel. But if we go one practical step further, and deduct, as in the present argument we ought, from the literary enemies of Sir Robert Peel those who avow republican principles and revolutionary hopes, then — as between Sir Robert Peel and his opponents as minister of the Crown-the press may be said to be almost unanimous in its preference of the late administration.

Again; public bodies and communities of people have sometimes conveyed to a minister expressions of public confidence; and such addresses-seldom very numerous, however respectablehave generally been produced or followed by strong declarations of an opposite opinion;-But when did it ever before happen that any minister, even in the plenitude of his power, much less after his fall, was honoured and rewarded with five hundred and twentysix addresses, from all classes of men in all parts and parties? And when has it happened that such an outbreak of public opinion has not been met by counter-declarations and antagonist addresses? +

*This number we have reckoned up to the day (15th April) on which we write, and it looks as if another week would double the number. The addresses to the King, within the last fortnight, sent through the Home Office, and expressive of confidence in Sir R. Peel, are up to the same date two hundred and twenty-six; these, of course, being in addition to those presented at the levee, or by Peers at audiences.

We see that a counter-address is announced from Edinburgh; and we have no doubt that hundreds may be procured amongst the democratic constituencies in support of the votes of their members-but the observations in the text apply to the first and genuine ebullition of public feeling towards the principles and conduct of an individual minister.

One

One of these addresses to Sir Robert Peel, the signatures to which have been published-that from Oxford-deserves particular notice, not merely from its being signed by an unparalleled combination of rank, property, learning, and every other element of respectability, but from the following, we had almost said, touching incident. We have been informed, that the day on which the nobility, clergy, and gentry of that city, university, and neighbourhood were signing their address, happened to be market-day-the farmers and country people at the market, hearing that something of the kind was going forward, proceeded spontaneously to the place where the address lay for signatures, and with the true and ancient spirit of English yeomen begged permission to add their humbler, but not less respectable, names to a list which, illustrious before for rank and talent, became still more so by the uninvited and unexpected addition of the plain good sense and good feeling of these honest and patriotic men.

With such facts before our eyes, we are far indeed from despairing of the destinies of our country, even though the helm is to be-not entrusted, but-abandoned to the indolent inconsistency of Lord Melbourne, and the flippant mediocrity of Lord John Russelldirected, rather than supported, by the discontented and deluded influences which the Reform Bill has enabled to exert, for the present, an electoral predominancy.

We hope, and indeed we sincerely believe, that neither Lord Melbourne nor Lord John Russell-nor their colleagues-nor indeed the majority of the present House of Commons have any design of pushing the country to democratic extremities. When once gratified with the possession of place and power, we believe that the Whig Lords would gladly stop. We have the evidence of their conduct during their former administrations, that, to use a phrase of Mr. Wilberforce's, they wish no more public calamity or disorganization than may just serve to keep them in power; and we should have felt no satisfaction at their former dismissal, nor should we now form a single wish against their success and stability, if we could hope that they could execute their own purposes and remain their own masters, or the servants only of the Crown-but we fear that they cannot. We, from the first proposition of the Reform Bill, foresaw its democratic tendencies; and every act, and every measure of the various Reform Ministries which we have already had, confirm those opinions. What they were not able to prevent-what they were not able to do-their changes of men-their vacillation about measures-the unnatural alliances which they made-the impotence of their resistancethe fruitlessness of their concessions-all showed, on the one hand, their desire to arrest the progress of the principle they had set in motion,

motion, and, on the other, their utter inability to do so. Those same scenes are about to be played over again-with, however, a tremendous addition to the public danger. The Whigs have already, to secure their return to power, sacrificed some great principles which a year ago they were pledged to maintain-the charter of the London University, and the Irish Church, for instance. Here have been completed, as far as depends on them, two most important encroachments: the one on the royal prerogative-the other on the inviolability of the United Church of England and Ireland, and, consequently, either on the Act of Union itself, or on the religious constitution of the empire! Having attained power by these concessions, they will be forced to maintain themselves by further sacrifices, which will occasion fresh disunion in the cabinet, new accessions of democratical influence, and increased and increasing danger to all the institutions of the country: Their ministry will not last a year-but what may be done within that year, we tremble to think.

We take this opportunity of recommending to the consideration of the new ministry, and of the new opposition, and of the people at large, the following passage from Mr. Ames's Appeal to Patriotism,' which describes, almost as if it had been written for us, our position, and our prospects

Let the lovers of the constitution cling to it while is has life in it, and even longer than there is hope. Let them be auxiliary to its virtues; let them contend for its corpse, as for the body of Patroclus; and let them reverence its memory. Let them delay, if they cannot prevent its fate. Despair not only hastens the evil, but renders any remedy unavailing. Time, that soothes all other sufferings, will bring no relief to us, if we neglect or throw away the means in our hands. What are they ?-Truth and argument. They are feeble means,feeble indeed, against prejudice and passion; yet they are all we have, and we must try them. They will be jury-masts if we are shipwrecked.

'Our assailants are weaker, and our means of defence greater, than the first patriots of France possessed; our good men, instead of running away, like the French emigrants, and giving up their estates to confiscation, must stay at home, and exert their talents and influence to save the country. Events may happen to baffle the schemes of Jacobinism; and, if the country should not be sleepy or infatuated, our adversaries will never be able to push the work of mischief to its consummation.'-pp. 178-180.

This country is not now, whatever it was three years ago, either sleepy or infatuated.' The intelligence and the property of this Protestant Monarchy are at length wide awake to the danger in which their all has been involved; and their just influence, direct and indirect, if strenuously and unremittingly exerted, may even

yet

yet rescue us from the worst natural results of our own miserable infatuation. England has indeed means of defence' far greater than France either had or deserved to have: her Church was not such as ours is her Aristocracy was not such as ourswhether in its own resources or in its more important relations with the other classes of society ;-and her Institutions had never in their hour of peril any such rallying point of hope and confidence as the great name around which the Conservative strength of England is now gathered.

Let us be excused if we conclude by quoting what the late Mr. Canning said in this Journal six-and-twenty years ago, at a moment when the prospects of our country were as dark as foreign hostility could ever render them :—

In any case, let us hope! It is not a blind, unreasoning confidence that we recommend; but a reflecting though courageous belief in the efficacy of those sentiments, qualities, and exertions by which, in different ages of the world, the career of successful villany has been arrested, and the liberties of nations vindicated, preserved, or restored. A sober, anxious, and apprehensive calculation of chances and probabilities, a disposition to consider, and a desire to provide against the worst, we are not inclined either to blame or dissuade. Such is the temper of mind with which it befits us to look at events doubtful in their issue, and at the same time so formidable in their consequences. But we do dissuade, and we should be inclined to blame, that species of panic, that fear in the nature of fascination, which anticipates the issue of the contest, not from a comparison of the two contending parties, but from the dread of one of them; which, presuming failure, would refuse assistance; which not only cherishes its own terrors, and spreads them with a spirit of proselytism, but repels and resents any attempt to dissipate them, and is almost prepared to feel any result which contradicts them as a disappointment.'-Quarterly Review, No

II. p.

255.

INDEX

TO THE

FIFTY-THIRD VOLUME OF THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

A.

ADRIANOPLE, treaty of, analysis of, 237.
Albatross, habits of the, 4.
America, 289-Gustave de Beaumont, ib.-
great merit of his 'Marie, ou l'Esclavage
aux Etats-Unis,' ib.-his traits of cha-
racter sketched from the life, 290-
'The Stranger in America' a nondescript
farrago, ib.-Mr. Lieber, ib.-outline of
the story of Marie, 291-cruel treatment
of the coloured race in America, 293-
solitary exception, 294-Catholic and
Protestant ministers contrasted, ib.-re-
lation that the Catholic priest stands in
to his flock, 295-character of the Pro-
testant priesthood, 296-transition from
the pulpit to the counter, ib.-Unitarians
the philosophers of the United States, ib.
-professions, 297-the clerical line,'
ib.-business of an author, 298-news-
papers the sole literature, ib.-dwindling
civilization, ib.-rule of the masses, 299
-uniformity in the political world, ib.—
and in civil society, ib.-money the God
of the States, ib.-the women of Ame-
rica, 300-the young females too know-
ing to be innocent, 301-their excessive
coquetry the consequence of their edu-
cation, ib.-purity of the matrons, ib.-
respect for the marriage tie, ib.-com-
mercial prosperity, 302-number of un-
fair bankruptcies, 303-interior of an
American family, ib.-observance of
Sunday, 304-week-day scene of an ex-
emplary ménage, 305-state of feeling
towards England, 306-passion for titles
of nobility, 307-social results of the
American system, 309- the Joseph
Hume nation,' ib.-American practical
turn of mind, 312-to-morrow soup,' ib.

America, possible destiny of the United
States of, 95.

Ames, Fisher, Esq., his 'Influence of De-
mocracy on Liberty, Property, and the
Happiness of Mankind, considered,'548.
Archer, Captain, his 'Tours in Upper India,'
40.

Architecture, History of, by Thomas Hope,

Esq., 338-little attachment shown by
the English gentry to this branch of the
refined arts, ib-want of a received
standard of excellence, 339-attention
to architecture an essential acquirement
of a traveller, ib.-the architecture of
London, Brighton, and Edinburgh a
disgrace to the country and age, ib—
gross ignorance of architecture displayed
by our tourists, 340-Forsyth and Woods
almost the only exceptions, ib.-neces-
sity of a well-directed study of architec
ture in England, ib.-decided inclination
to adopt a disordered system, 341—edi-
fices of the middle ages to be reverently
preserved, 342-churches recently
erected on the Gothic model eminently
infelicitous, ib.-the National Gallery,
343-the author, though not profession-
ally, essentially an architect, ib.-the
natural and fortuitous advantages be en-
joyed, 344-his industry and enthusiasm,
ib.-merits of the present treatise, 346-
its chief deficiencies, 347-its style, 348
-invention of the arch, 350-decline
of the art, 350-architecture of the early
Christians, 351-the Byzantine style, 352
-the Lombard style, ib.-the pointed
arch style, 353-origin of Gothic archi-
tecture, 355-alleged superiority of our
interiors, 360-Grecian architecture,
363-the Louis-Quatorze style, 364—
Palladio, 366-Greek temples, 369-

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