Witness it! ye many years of wondrous alternation--of lurid tempest and

sunny calm--of disastrous rout and triumphant procession--of shouting paean

and wailing dirge--witness the imperturbable tenor of our way! Attest it,

thou goodly array of the tomes of Maga, laden and sparkling, now as ever,

with wisdom and wit, science and fancy!--attest the unwavering fidelity of

our career! All this is very true; but the secret annals of the good can

never be free from temptations, and never are in reality unblotted by

peccadilloes. The fury of the demagogue has been our laughing-stock--the

versatility of trimming politicians, our scorn. We have crouched before

none of the powers which have been, or be; neither have we been carried

off our feet by the whirlwinds of popular passion. Yet it is difficult to

resist a good dinner. The victories of Miltiades robbed Themistocles of

sleep. The triumphs of SOYER are apt to affect us, "with a difference,"

after the same fashion.

There was, we remember, a spirit of surly independence within us on

visiting, for the first time, the "high capital" of Whiggery, where the

Tail at present

"New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer

Their State affairs."

To admire any thing was not our mood:

"The ascending pile

Stood fix'd her stately heighth; and straight the doors,

Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide

Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth

And level pavement."

And as these lines suggested themselves, we recollected who the first Whig

is said to have been, and whose architectural glories Milton was

recording. We never yet heard a Radical disparage a peer of the realm

without being convinced, that deep in the pocket, next his heart, lay an

incautious hospitable invitation from the noble lord, to which a

precipitate answer in the affirmative had already been dispatched.

Analogously, in the magnificent edifice, whose tesselated floor we were

treading gingerly, it seemed to us that we surveyed an unmistakable

monument of an innate predilection for the splendours and comforts, the

pomp and the _abandon_, of a "proud aristocracy." This was before dinner,

and we were hungry. To tell all that happened to us for some hours

afterwards, would, in fact, force us to transfer to our pages more than

half of the volume which is prompting these observations. Suffice it to

say, that when we again stood on Pall-Mall, a bland philanthropy of

sentiment, embracing all races, and classes, and sects of men, permeated

our bosom. Whence came the mellowing influence, seeing that we had been,

as our custom is, very innocent of wine? Nor could it be the seductive

eloquence of the company. We had indeed been roundly vituperated in

argument by the Liberator. Oh yes! but we had been fed by the Regenerator.

To us, then, on these things much meditating--so Cicero and Brougham love

to write--many of the speculations in which we had indulged, and of the

principles which we had advocated, were obviously not quite in harmony

with the views long inculcated by us on a docile public. Suddenly the

truth flashed across and illuminated the perplexity of our ponderings. We

were aware that, early in the evening, a much milder censure than usual

upon some factious Liberal manoeuvre had passed our lips. This took

place just about the fourth spoonful of soup. The spells were already in

operation under the shape of "_potage a la Marcus Hill_." There is a

fascination even in the name of this "delicious soup"--such is the epithet

of Soyer--which our readers will better understand in the sequel. Again,

it was impossible to deny that we had hazarded several equivocal

observations in reference to the Palmerstonian policy in Syria. But it was

equally true that such inadvertencies slipped from us while laboriously

engaged in determining a delicate competition between "_John Doree a

l'Orleannaise_" and "_saumon a la Beyrout_." A transient compliment to the

influence at elections of the famous Duchess of Devonshire was little

liable to objection, we imagined, during a playful examination of a few

"_aiguillettes de volaille a la jolie fille_." More questionable, it must

be admitted, were certain assertions regarding the Five Points, enunciated

hastily over a "_neck of mutton a la Charte_." No fault, however, had we

to find with the cutting facetiousness with which we had garnished

"_cotelettes d'Agneau a la reforme en surprise aux Champignons_." The

title of this dish was so ludicrously applicable to the consternation of

the remnants of the Melbourne ministry--the cutlets of lamb--in finding

themselves outrun in the race by mushroom free-traders, that our

pleasantry thereanent was irresistible. It was difficult, at the same

time, to justify the expression of an opinion, infinitely too favourable

to Peel's commercial policy, yielding to the allurements of a "_turban des

cailles a la financiere_." And, on the whole, we smarted beneath a

consciousness that all our conversation had been perceptibly flavoured by

"_filets de becasses a la Talleyrand_."

The result of these reflections was, simply, an alarming conviction of the

tremendous influence exercised by Soyer throughout all the workings of the

British constitution. The causes of the success of the League begin to

dawn upon us, while our gravest suspicions are confirmed by the

appearance, at this peculiar crisis, of the "Gastronomic Regenerator."

What patriotism can withstand a superabundance of untaxed food, cooked

according to the tuition of Soyer? How can public virtue keep its ground

against such a rush of the raw material, covered by such a "_batterie de

cuisine_?" Cobden and Soyer, in alliance, have given a new turn, and

terribly literal power, to the fable of Menenius Agrippa.

"There was a time when all the body's members

Rebell'd against the belly."

Such times are gone. The belly now has it all its own way, while

"The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,

The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,

Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,"

are conjunctly and severally cuffed, or bunged up, or broken, or stifled,

unless they are perpetually ministering to the service of the great

cormorant corporation. It is mighty well to talk of the dissolution of the

League. The testament of Caesar, commented on by Mark Antony, was

eventually more fatal to the liberties of Rome, than the irrepressible

ambition which originally urged the arch-traitor across the Rubicon. The

"Gastronomic Regenerator," in the hands of every housewife in the country,

is merely to convert the most invincible portion of the community into a

perpetual militia of free-traders. All cooks proverbially encourage an

enormous consumption of victuals. The study of Soyer will infallibly

transform three-fourths of the empire into cooks. Consequently, the demand

for every variety of sustenance, by an immense majority of the nation,

will be exorbitant and perennial. No syllogism can be more unassailable.

We venture also to affirm that the judgment of posterity will be rigidly

true in apportioning the endurance of fame which the conflicting merits of

our great benefactors may deserve. It is far from unlikely that the

glories of a Peel may be disregarded, forgotten, and unsung, when the

trophies of a Soyer, still odorous, and unctuous, and fresh, shall be in

every body's mouth.

The "Gastronomic Regenerator" has not assumed his imposing title without a

full appreciation of the dignity of his office and the elevation of his

mission. The brief and graceful "dialogue culinaire" between Lord M. H.

and himself, illustrates the grand doctrines that man is a cooking animal,

and that the progress of cooking is the progress of civilisation. There is

something prodigiously sublime in the words of the noble interlocutor,

when he declares, "Read history, and you see that in every age, and among

all nations, the good which has been done, and sometimes the evil, has

been always preceded or followed by a copious dinner." This language, we

presume, must be considered on the great scale, as applicable to the most

solemn and momentous occurrences in the history of governments and

countries. Not that we can exclude it from individual biography.

Benevolence we have always regarded as a good sauce, and have often

observed it to be an excellent dessert. The man who tucks his napkin under

his chin immediately after conferring a benefit on a fellow-creature,

invariably manifests marvellous capabilities for digestion; and, on the

other hand, the man who has dined to his own entire satisfaction, if

solicited in the nick of time, will frequently evince an open-handed

generosity, to which his more matutine emotions would have been strangers.

But--to reverse the picture--any interruption to the near prospect of a

"copious dinner" is at all times inimical to charity; while repletion, we

know, occasionally reveals such unamiable dispositions as could not have

been detected by the most jealous scrutiny at an earlier period of the

day. Nations are but hives of individuals. We understand, therefore, the

noble lord to mean, that all the history of all the thousand races of the

globe concurrently teaches us that every great event, social or political,

domestic or foreign, involving their national weal or woe, has been

harbingered or commemorated by a "copious dinner." Many familiar instances

of this profound truth--some of very recent date--crowd into our

recollection. But we cannot help suspecting a deeper meaning to be

inherent in the enunciation of this "great fact." Copious dinners are, as

it strikes us, here covertly represented as the means of effecting the

most extensive ameliorations. To dine is insinuated to be the first step

on the highway to improvement. In the consequences which flow from dining

copiously, what is beneficial is evidently stated to preponderate over

what is hurtful, the qualifying "sometimes" being only attached to the

latter. In this respect, dinners seem to differ from men, that the evil is

more frequently "interred with their bones," while the "good they do lives

after them." This is, assuredly, ringing a dinner-bell incessantly to the

whole universe. We have ourselves, not half an hour ago, paid our quota

for participating within the last week in congratulatory festivities to

two eminent public characters. The overwhelming recurrence, in truth, of

these entertainments, drains us annually of a handsome income; and

reading, as we do daily in the newspapers, how every grocer, on changing

his shop round the corner, and every professor of dancing, on being driven

by the surges of the Utilitarian system up another flight of stairs, must,

to felicitate or soothe him, receive the tribute or consolation of a

banquet and demonstration, we hold up our hands in amazement at the

opulence and deglutition of Scotland.

What shall become of us, driven further onwards still, by the impetus of

the Gastronomic Regenerator, we dare not foretell. The whole year may be a

circle of public feasts; and our institutions gradually, although with no

small velocity, relapse into the common table of Sparta. But never,

whispers Soyer, into the black broth of Lycurgus. And so he ensnares us

into the recognition of another fundamental principle, that the simplicity

of Laconian fare night be admirably appropriate for infant republics and

penniless helots, but can afford no subsistence to an overgrown empire,

and the possessors of the wealth of the world! Thus cookery marks, dates,

and authenticates the refinement of mankind. The savage cuts his warm

slice from the haunches of the living animal, and swallows it reeking from

the kitchen of nature. The civilized European, revolting from the dreadful

repast, burns, and boils, and stews, and roasts his food into an external

configuration, colour, and substance, as different from its original

condition as the mummy of Cheops differs from the Cheops who watched, with

an imperial dilatation of his brow, the aspiring immortality of the

pyramids. Both, in acting so differently, are the slaves and the types of

the circumstances of their position. The functions in the frames of both

are the same; but these functions curiously follow the discipline of the

social situation which directs and regulates their development. The

economy of the kitchen is only a counterpart, in its simplicity or

complication, its rudeness or luxury, of the economy of the state. The

subjects of patriarchs and despots may eat uncooked horses with relish and

nourishment. The denizens of a political system whose every motion is

regulated by an intricate machinery, in which the teeth of all the myriad

wheels in motion are indented with inextricable multiplicity of confusion

into each other, perish under any nurture which is not as intricate,

complex, artificial, and confused. What a noble and comprehensive science

is this Gastronomy!

"Are you not also," says the philosophic Soyer, in the same interesting

dialogue, "of opinion with me, my lord, that nothing better disposes the

mind of man to amity in thought and deed, than a dinner which has been

knowingly selected, and artistically served?" The answer is most pregnant.

"It is my thinking so," replies Lord M. H., "which has always made me say

that a good cook is as useful as a wise minister." Behold to what an

altitude we are carried! The loaves and fishes in the hands of the Whigs,

and Soyer at the Reform Club to dress them! Let us banish melancholy, and

drive away dull care. The bellicose propensities of a foreign secretary

are happily innocuous. The rumours of war pass by us like the idle wind

which we regard not. Protocols and treaties, notes and representations,

are henceforth disowned by diplomacy. The figure of Britannia with a

stew-pan for her helmet, and a spit for a spear, leaning in statuesque

repose on a folio copy of the _Gastronomic Regenerator_,

"Surveys mankind from China to Peru;"

and with an unruffled ocean at her feet, and a cloudless sky overhead,

smiles on the countless millions of the children of earth, chatting

fraternally together at the round table of universal peace. Bright will be

the morning of the day which sees the impress of such an image on our

currency. Of course, it will be understood that we are entirely of the

same mind, abstractly, as M. Soyer and Lord M. H. The _maitre de cuisine_

appears to us unquestionably to be one of the most important functionaries

belonging to an embassy. Peace or war, which it is scarcely necessary to

interpret as the happiness or the misery of two great countries, may

depend upon a headache. Now, if it were possible, in any case, to trace

the bilious uneasiness which may have perverted pacific intentions into

hostile designs, to the unskilful or careless performance of his momentous

duties by the cook-legate, no punishment could too cruelly expiate such a

blunder. We should be inclined to propose that the brother artist who most

adroitly put the delinquent to torture, should be his successor, holding

office under a similar tenure. It may be matter of controversy, however,

at once whether such a system would work well, and whether it is agreeable

to the prevalence of those kindly feelings which it is the object of M.

Soyer, and every other good cook or wise statesman, to promulgate

throughout the human family. The publication of the _Gastronomic

Regenerator_ inspires us with better hopes. The tyro of the dripping-pan

will be no more entitled to screen himself behind his imperfect science or

neglected education, than the unlettered criminal to plead his ignorance

of the alphabet as a justification of his ignorance of the statute law,

whose enactments send him to Botany Bay. The rudiments and the

mysteries--the elementary axioms and most recondite problems--of his lofty

vocation are unrolled before him in legible and intelligible characters.

The skill which is the offspring of practice, must be attained by his

opportunities and his industry. And if

"Fame is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise,"

it might, we trust, satiate the most ravenous appetite which ever gnawed

the bowels even of a cook, not merely to secure the tranquillity of the

universe, but to save his native land the expense of armies and fleets,

and turn the currents of gold absorbed by taxation, into the more

congenial channel of gastronomical enterprise. The majestic and

far-spreading oak springs out of the humble acorn. In future ages, the

acute historian will demonstrate how the "copious dinner" which cemented

the bonds of eternal alliance between vast and consolidated empires, whose

people were clothed in purple and fine linen, lived in habitations

decorated with every tasteful and gorgeous variety which caprice could

suggest and affluence procure, and mingled the physical indolence of

Sybaris with the intellectual activity of Athens, was but the ripe fruit

legitimately matured from the simple bud of the calumet of peace, which

sealed a hollow truce among the roving and puny lands of the naked,

cityless, and untutored Indian. So, once more, the perfectibility of

cookery indicates the perfectibility of society.

The gallantry of Soyer is as conspicuous as his historical and political

philosophy. He would not profusely "scatter plenty o'er a smiling land"

solely for the gratification of his own sex. The sun shines on woman as on

man; and when the sun will not shine, a woman's eye supplies all the light

we need. The sagacious "Regenerator" refuses to restrict to the lordly

moiety of mankind a monopoly of his beams, feeling that, when the pressure

of mortal necessity sinks his head, fairer hands than those of the

statesman or the warrior, the ecclesiastic or the lawyer, are likely to be

the conservators of his reputation. "Allow me," he remarks, "to suggest to

your lordship, that a meeting for practical gastronomical purposes, _where

there are no ladies_, is in my eyes a garden without flowers, a sea

without waves, an experimental squadron without sails."

"Without the smile from partial beauty won,

Say what were man?--a world without a sun!"

The harrowing picture of desolation, from the pen of M. Soyer, may be

equalled, but cannot be surpassed, by a line here and there in Byron's

"Darkness." The sentiment, at the same time, sounds oddly, as it issues

from the penetralia of a multitudinous club. Our notion has hitherto been,

that a club was an invention of which a principal object was to prove that

female society was far from being indispensable to man, and that all the

joys of domesticity might be tasted in a state of single-blessedness

beyond the precincts of home for a small annual payment. A thorough-going

club-man would very soon drive a coach and four through the Regenerator's

polite eloquence. For instance, a garden without flowers has so much the

more room for the growth of celery, asparagus, artichokes, and the like.

There could not possibly be a greater convenience than the evaporation or

disappearance of the waters of the ocean; because we should then have

railways every where, and no nausea. Sails, likewise, are not requisite

now-a-days for ships; on the contrary, steam-vessels are so evidently

superior, that the sail-maker may as well shut up his shop. The flowers of

a garden are an incumbrance--the waves of the sea are an impediment--the

sails of a ship are a superfluity. Garden, sea, and ship would be better

wanting flowers, waves, and sails. On the same principles a club is

preferable to a family fire-side, and the lot of a bachelor to the fate of

a Benedict. M. Soyer, speaking _ex cathedra_ from the kitchen of the

Reform Club, would find it no easy matter to parry the cogency of this

reasoning. He forgets, apparently, that he bares his breast to a most

formidable attack. What right have MEN to be Cooks? What hypocrisy it is

to regret that women cannot eat those dinners which women alone are

entitled, according to the laws of nature and the usages of Britain, to

dress! Be just before you affect to be generous! Surrender the place, and

the privileges, and the immunities, which are the heritage and birthright

of the petticoat! Hercules with a distaff was bad enough; but here, in the

vagaries and metamorphoses of heathen mythology, do you read of Hercules

with a dishclout? What would the moon say, should the sun insist on

blazing away all night as well as all day? Your comparisons are full of

poetry and humbug. A kitchen without a female cook--it _is_ like a

flowerless garden, a waveless sea, a sail-less ship. A kitchen with a male

cook--is a monster which natural history rejects, and good feeling abhors.

The rights of women are scarcely best vindicated by him who usurps the

most precious of them. There will be time to complain of their absence

from the scene, when, by a proper self-ostracism, you leave free for them

the stage which it becomes them to occupy. These are knotty matters, M.

Soyer, for digestion. With so pretty a quarrel we shall not interfere,

having a wholesome respect for an Amazonian enemy who can stand fire like

salamanders. To be candid, we are puzzled by the sprightliness of our own

fancy, and do not very distinctly comprehend how we have managed to

involve the Regenerator, whose thoughts were bent on the pale and slim

sylphs of the boudoir, in a squabble with the rubicund and rotund vestals

who watch the inextinguishable flames of THE GREAT HEARTH.

This marvellous dialogue, from which we have taken with our finger and

thumb a tit-bit here and there, might be the text for inexhaustible

annotation. It occupies no more than two pages; but, as Gibbon has said of

Tacitus, "they are the pages of Soyer." Every topic within the range of

human knowledge is touched, by direct exposition or collateral allusion.

The metaphysician and the theologian, the physiologist and the moralist,

are all challenged to investigate its dogmas, which, let us forewarn them,

are so curtly, positively, and oracularly propounded, as, if orthodox, to

need no commentary; and if heterodox, to demand accumulated mountains of

controversy to overwhelm them. For he, we believe, can hardly be deemed a

mean opponent, unworthy of a foeman's steel-pen, who has at his fingers'

ends "Mullets a la Montesquieu," "Fillets of Haddock a la St Paul,"

"Saddle of Mutton a la Mirabeau," "Ribs of Beef a la Bolingbroke,"

"Pounding Souffle a la Mephistopheles," "Woodcock a la Stael," and "Filets

de Boeuf farcis a la Dr Johnson."

The constitution of English cookery is precisely similar to the

constitution of the English language. Both were prophetically sketched by

Herodotus in his description of the army of Xerxes, which gathered its

numbers, and strength, and beauty, from "all the quarters in the shipman's

card." That imperishable mass of noble words--that glorious tongue in

which Soyer has prudently written the "Gastronomic Regenerator," is in

itself an unequalled specimen of felicitous cookery. The dishes which

furnished the most _recherche_ dinner Soyer ever dressed, the "Diner

Lucullusian a la Sampayo," being resolved into the chaos whence they arose

in faultless proportions and resistless grace, would not disclose elements

and ingredients more heterogenous, remote, and altered from their primal

nature, than those which go to the composition of the few sentences in

which he tells us of this resuscitation of the _caena_ of Petronius. A

thousand years and a thousand accidents, the deepest erudition and the

keenest ingenuity, the most delicate wit and most outrageous folly, have

been co-operating in the manufacture of the extraordinary vocabulary which

has enabled the Regenerator himself to concoct the following unparalleled

receipt for

"THE CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL CREAM OF GREAT BRITAIN.

"Procure, if possible, the antique Vase of the Roman Capitol; the Cup

of Hebe; the Strength of Hercules; and the Power of Jupiter;"

"_Then proceed as follows:_--"

"Have ready the chaste Vase (on the glittering rim of which three

doves are resting in peace), and in it deposit a Smile from the

Duchess of Sutherland, from which Terrestrial Deesse it will be most

graceful; then add a Lesson from the Duchess of Northumberland; the

Happy Remembrance of Lady Byron; an Invitation from the Marchioness

of Exeter; a Walk in the Fairy Palace of the Duchess of Buckingham;

an Honour of the Marchioness of Douro; a Sketch from Lady

Westmoreland; Lady Chesterfield's Conversation; the Deportment of the

Marchioness of Aylesbury; the Affability of Lady Marcus Hill; some

Romances of Mrs Norton; a Mite of Gold from Miss Coutts; a Royal

Dress from the Duchess of Buccleuch; a Reception from the Duchess of

Leinster; a Fragment of the Works of Lady Blessington; a Ministerial

Secret from Lady Peel; a Gift from the Duchess of Bedford; an

Interview with Madame de Bunsen; a Diplomatic Reminiscence from the

Marchioness of Clanricarde; an Autocratic Thought from the Baroness

Brunow; a Reflection from Lady John Russell; an amiable Word from

Lady Wilton; the Protection of the Countess de St Aulaire; a Seraphic

Strain from Lady Essex; a poetical gift of the Baroness de la

Calabrala; a Welcome from Lady Alice Peel; the Sylph-like form of the

Marchioness of Abercorn; a Soiree of the Duchess of Beaufort; a

Reverence of the Viscountess Jocelyn; and the Good-will of Lady

Palmerston.

"Season with the Piquante Observation of the Marchioness of

Londonderry; the Stately Mein of the Countess of Jersey; the Tresor

of the Baroness Rothschild; the Noble Devotion of Lady Sale; the

Knowledge of the Fine Arts of the Marchioness of Lansdowne; the

Charity of the Lady De Grey; a Criticism from the Viscountess of

Melville;--with a Musical Accompaniment from the whole; and Portraits

of all these Ladies taken from the Book of Celebrated Beauties.

"Amalgamate scientifically; and should you find this _Appareil_

(which is without a parallel) does not mix well, do not regard the

expense for the completion of a dish worthy of the Gods!

"Endeavour to procure, no matter at what price, a Virtuous Maxim from

the Book of Education of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent; a

Kiss from the Infant Princess Alice; an Innocent Trick of the

Princess-Royal; a Benevolent Visit from the Duchess of Gloucester; a

Maternal Sentiment of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge; a

Compliment from the Princess Augusta de Mecklenbourg; the future

Hopes of the Young Princess Mary;--

"And the Munificence of Her Majesty Queen Adelaide.

"Cover the Vase with the Reign of Her Most Gracious Majesty, and let

it simmer for half a century, or more, if possible, over a Fire of

Immortal Roses.

"Then uncover, with the greatest care and precision, this Mysterious

Vase; garnish the top with the Aurora of a Spring Morning; several

Rays of the Sun of France; the Serenity of an Italian Sky; and the

Universal Appreciation of the Peace of Europe.

"Add a few Beams of the Aurora Borealis; sprinkle over with the

Virgin Snow of Mont Blanc; glaze with an Eruption of Mount Vesuvius,

cause the Star of the Shepherd to dart over it; and remove, as

quickly as possible, this _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the nineteenth century

from the Volcanic District.

"Then fill Hebe's Enchanted Cup with a religious Balm, and with it

surround this mighty Cream of Immortality;

"Terminate with the Silvery light of the Pale Queen of Night, without

disturbing a Ray of the Brilliancy of the brightest Queen of the

Day."

Half a century hence, when the simmering over the roseate fire is silent,

may we, with M. Soyer, be present to gaze on the happy consummation of the

conceptions of his transcendant imagination!

The Regenerator is too conversant with universal history not to know that

his book, in crossing the Tweed northwards, approaches a people more

familiar with its fundamental principles than any other inhabitants of

these Fortunate Isles. England, for any thing we care, may deserve the

opprobrious title of perfidious Albion. Scotland--("Stands Scotland where

it did?")--was ever the firm friend of France. Ages ago, when our southern

cousins were incessantly fighting, we were constantly dining, with the

French. Our royal and noblest families were mingled by the dearest ties

with the purest and proudest blood of the adopted land of Mary. For

centuries uninterruptedly was maintained an interchange of every gentle

courtesy, and every friendly succour; and when the broadsword was not

needed to gleam in the front ranks of Gallic chivalry, the dirk never

failed to emit the first flash in the onslaughts of Gallic hospitality.

The Soyers of those times--dim precursors of the Regenerator--did not

disdain to alight on our hungry shores, and leave monuments of their

beneficence, which are grateful to this hour in the nostrils and to the

palate of prince and peasant. Nay, we shrewdly conjecture that some

time-honoured secrets still dwell with us, of which the memory has long

since perished in their birth-place. Boastful we may not suffer ourselves

to be. But if M. Soyer ever heard of, or dressed or tasted precisely as we

have dressed and tasted, what is known to us and a very limited circle of

acquaintances as "Lamb-toasty," we shall start instantly from the

penultimate habitation of Ultima Thule, commonly known as John O'Groat's

House, expressly to test his veracity, and gratify our voracity. Perhaps

he may think it would not be too polite in us to transmit him the receipt.

Not for a wilderness of Regenerators! Could we unfold to him the awful

legend in connexion with it, of which we are almost the exclusive

depositaries, the cap so lightly lying on his brow would be projected

upwards to the roof by the instantaneous starting of his hair. The Last

Minstrel himself, to whom it was narrated, shook his head when he heard

it, and was never known to allude to it again; in reference to which

circumstance, all that the bitterest malice could insinuate was, that if

the story had been worth remembering, he was not likely to have forgotten

it. "One December midnight, a shriek"--is probably as far as we can now

venture to proceed. There are some descendants of the parties, whose

feelings, even after the lapse of five hundred years, which is but as

yesterday in a Highlander's genealogy, we are bound to respect. In other

five hundred years, we shall, with more safety to ourselves, let them "sup

full of horrors."

The Gastronomic Regenerator reminds us of no book so much as the

Despatches of Arthur Duke of Wellington. The orders of Soyer emanate from

a man with a clear, cool, determined mind--possessing a complete mastery

of his weapons and materials, and prompt to make them available for

meeting every contingency--singularly fertile in conceiving, and fortunate

without a check in executing, sudden, rapid, and difficult

combinations--overlooking nothing with his eagle eye, and, by the powerful

felicity of his resources, making the most of every thing--matchless in

his "Hors-d'OEuvres"--unassailable in his "Removes"--impregnable in his

"Pieces de resistance"--and unconquerable with his "Flanks." His

directions are lucid, precise, brief, and unmistakeable. There is not a

word in them superfluous--or off the matter immediately on hand--or not

directly to the point. They are not the dreams of a visionary theorist and

enthusiast, but the hard, solid, real results of the vast experience of a

tried veteran, who has personally superintended or executed all the

operations of which he writes. It may be matter of dispute whether

Wellington or Soyer acquired their knowledge in the face of the hotter

fire. They are both great Chiefs--whose mental and intellectual faculties

have a wonderful similarity--and whose sayings and doings are

characterised by an astonishing resemblance in nerve, perspicuity, vigour,

and success. In one respect M. Soyer has an advantage over his illustrious

contemporary. His Despatches are addressed to an army which as far

outnumbers any force every commanded or handled by the Hero of Waterloo,

as the stars in the blue empyrean exceed the gas-lamps of London--an army

which, instead of diminishing under any circumstances, evinces a tendency,

we fear, of steadily swelling its ranks year by year, and day by day--a

standing army, which the strong hand of the most jealous republicanism

cannot suppress, and which the realization of the bright chimera of

universal peace will fail to disband. Before many months are gone,

thousands and tens of thousands will be marching and countermarching,

cutting and skewering, broiling and freezing, in blind obedience to the

commands of the Regenerator. "Peace hath her victories no less than those

of war." But it is not to be forgotten that if the sword of Wellington had

not restored and confirmed the tranquillity of the world, the

carving-knife of Soyer might not have been so bright.

The confidence of Soyer in his own handiwork is not the arrogant

presumption of vanity, but the calm self-reliance of genius. There is a

deal of good sense in the paragraph which we now quote:--

"Although I am entirely satisfied with the composition, distribution,

and arrangement of my book, should some few little mistakes be

discovered they will be the more excusable under those circumstances,

as in many instances I was unable to devote that tedious time

required for correction; and although I have taken all possible care

to prescribe, by weight and measure, the exact quantity of

ingredients used in the following receipts for the seasoning and

preparing of all kinds of comestibles, I must observe that the

ingredients are not all either of the same size or quality; for

instance, some eggs are much larger than others, some pepper

stronger, salt salter, and even some sugar sweeter. In vegetables,

again, there is a considerable difference in point of size and

quality; fruit is subject to the same variation, and, in fact all

description of food is subject to a similar fluctuation. I am far,

however, from taking these disproportions for excuses, but feel

satisfied, if the medium of the specified ingredients be used, and

the receipts in other respects closely followed, nothing can hinder

success."

It seems a childish remark to make, that all salts do not coincide in

their saltness, nor sugars in their sweetness. The principle, however,

which the observation contains within it, is any thing but childish. It

implies, that, supposing the accuracy of a Soyer to be nearly infallible,

the faith in his instructions must never be so implicit as to supersede

the testimony of one's own senses, and the admonitions of one's own

judgment. It is with the most poignant recollections that we acknowledge

the justice of the Regenerator's caution on this head. We once, with a

friend who shared our martyrdom, tried to make onion soup in exact

conformity with what was set down in an Oracle of Cookery, which a foul

mischance had placed across our path. With unerring but inflecting

fidelity, we filled, and mixed, and stirred, and watched, the fatal

caldron. The result was to the eye inexpressibly alarming. A thick oily

fluid, repulsive in colour, but infinitely more so in smell, fell with a

flabby, heavy, lazy stream, into the soup-plate. Having swallowed, with a

Laocoonic contortion of countenance, two or three mouthfuls, our

individual eyes wandered stealthily towards our neighbour. Evidently we

were fellow-sufferers; but pride, which has occasioned so many lamentable

catastrophes, made us both dumb and obdurate in our agony. Slowly and

sadly, at lengthened intervals, the spoon, with its abominable freight,

continued to make silent voyages from the platters to our lips. How long

we made fools of ourselves it is not necessary to calculate. Suddenly, by

a simultaneous impulse, the two windows of the room favoured the headlong

exit of two wretches whose accumulated grievances were heavier than they

could endure. Hours rolled away, while the beautiful face of Winandermere

looked as ugly as Styx, as we writhed along its banks, more miserably

moaning than the hopeless beggar who sighed for the propitiatory obolus to

Charon. And from that irrevocable hour we have abandoned onions to the

heroines of tragedy. Fools, in spite of all warning, are taught by such a

process as that to which we submitted. Wise men, take a hint.

"Nature, says I to myself"--Soyer is speaking--"compels us to dine more or

less once a-day." The average which oscillates between the "more" and the

"less," it requires considerable dexterity to catch. Having read six

hundred pages and fourteen hundred receipts, the question is, where are we

to begin? Our helplessness is confessed. Is it possible the Regenerator

is, after all, more tantalizing than the Barmecide? No--here is the very

aid we desiderate. Our readers shall judge of a

"DINNER PARTY AT HOME."

BILL OF FARE FOR EIGHT PERSONS.

Asparagus.

New Potatoes.

1 SOUP.

French Pot au Feu.

1 FISH.

3 Slices of Salmon en matelote.

2 REMOVES.

Braised Fowls with spring vegetables.

Leg of Mutton basted with devil's tears.

2 ENTREES.

Lamb Cutlets with asparagus, peas.

Salmi of Plovers with mushrooms.

2 ROASTS.

2 Ducklings.

4 Pigeons barded with vine leaves.

4 ENTREMETS.

Orange Jelly.

Green peas.

Omelette, with fine herbs.

Gooseberry Tart with cream.

1 REMOVE.

Iced Cake with fruits.

"Nothing but light wine is drunk at the first course, but at the

second my guests are at liberty to drink wines of any other

description, intercepting them with several hors-d'oeuvres, which

are small dishes of French pickled olives and sardines, thin slices

of Bologna sausage, fillets of anchovies, ciboulettes, or very small

green onions, radishes, &c.; also a plain dressed salade a la

Francais, (for which see end of the entrees, Kitchen at Home),

fromage de brie Neufchatel, or even Windsor cheese, when it can be

procured. The coffee and dessert I usually leave to the good taste

and economy of my menagere."

We shall be exceedingly curious to hear how many hundred parties of eight

persons, upon reading this bill of fare in our pages, will, without loss

of time, congregate in order to do it substantial honour. Such clattering

of brass and brandishing of steel may strike a new government as

symptomatical or preparatory of a popular rising. We may therefore

reassure them with the information, that those who sit down with M. Soyer,

will have little thought of rising for a long time afterwards.

We have introduced the Gastronomic Regenerator to public notice in that

strain which its external appearance, its title, its scheme and its

contents, demand and justify. But we must not, even good-humouredly,

mislead those for whose use its publication is principally intended. To

all intents and purposes M. Soyer's work is strictly and most intelligibly

practical. It is as full of matter as an egg is full of meat; and the

household which would travel through its multitudinous lessons must be as

full of meat as the Regenerator is full of matter. The humblest, as well

as the wealthiest kitchen economy, is considered and instructed; nor will

the three hundred receipts at the conclusion of the volume, which are more

peculiarly applicable to the "Kitchen at Home," be, probably the portion

of the book least agreeable and valuable to the general community. For

example, just before shaking hands with him, let us listen to M. Soyer,

beginning admirably to discourse

_Of the Choosing and Roasting of Plain Joints._

"Here I must claim all the attention of my readers. Many of the

profession will, I have no doubt, be surprised that I should dwell

upon a subject, which appears of so little importance, saying that,

from the plain cook to the most professed, all know how to roast or

boil a piece of meat; but there I must beg their pardon. I will

instance myself, for, previously to my forming any intention of

writing the present work, I had not devoted the time necessary to

become professionally acquainted with it, always depending upon my

roasting cook, who had constant practice, myself only having the

knowledge of whether or not properly done. I have since not only

studied it closely, but have made in many respects improvements upon

the old system, and many discoveries in that branch which I am sure

is the most beneficial to all classes of society, (remembering, as I

have before stated, that three parts of the animal food of this

country is served either plain-roasted or boiled) My first study was

the fire, which I soon perceived as too deep, consumed too much coal,

and required poking every half hour, thus sending dust and dirt all

over the joints, which were immediately basted to wash it off; seeing

plainly this inconvenience, I immediately remedied it by inventing my

new roasting fire-place, by which means I saved two hundred-weight of

coals per day, besides the advantage of never requiring to be poked,

being narrow and perpendicular; the fire is lighted with the greatest

facility, and the front of the fire being placed a foot back in the

chimney-piece, throws the heat of the fire direct upon the meat, and

not out at the sides, as many persons know, from the old roasting

ranges. I have many times placed ladies or gentlemen, visiting the

club, within two feet of the fire when six large joints have been

roasting, and they have been in perfect ignorance that it was near

them, until, upon opening the wing of the screen by surprise, they

have appeared quite terrified to think they were so near such an

immense furnace. My next idea was to discontinue basting, perhaps a

bold attempt to change and upset at once the custom of almost all

nations and ages, but being so confident of its evil effects and

tediousness, I at once did away with it, and derived the greatest

benefit (for explanation, see remarks at the commencement of the

roasts in the Kitchen of the Wealthy,) for the quality of meat in

England is, I may say, superior to any other nation; its moist soil

producing fine grass almost all the year round, which is the best

food for every description of cattle; whilst in some countries not so

favoured by nature they are obliged to have recourse to artificial

food, which fattens the animals but decreases the flavour of the

meat: and, again, we, must take into consideration the care and

attention paid by the farmers and graziers to improve the stock of

those unfortunate benefactors of the human family."

How full of milky kindness is his language, still breathing the spirit of

that predominant idea--the tranquillisation of the universe by "Copious

Dinners!" He has given up "basting" with success. Men may as well give up

basting one another. Nobody will envy the Regenerator the bloodless

fillets worthily encircling his forehead, should the aspirations of his

benevolent soul in his lifetime assume any tangible shape. But if a more

distant futurity is destined to witness the lofty triumph, he may yet

depart in the confidence of its occurrence. The most precious fruits ripen

the most slowly. The sun itself does not burst at once into meridian

splendour. Gradually breaks the morning; and the mellow light glides

noiselessly along, tinging mountain, forest, and city spire, till a

stealthy possession seems to be taken of the whole upper surface of

creation, and the mighty monarch at last uprises on a world prepared to

expect, to hail, and to reverence his perfect and unclouded majesty.

THE LATE AND THE PRESENT MINISTRY.

Our sentiments with regard to the change of policy on the part of Sir

Robert Peel and his coadjutors, were early, and we hope forcibly,

expressed. We advocated then, as ever, the principle of protection to

native industry and agriculture, not as a class-benefit, but on far deeper

and more important considerations. We deprecated the rash experiment of

departing from a system under which we had flourished so long--of yielding

to the clamours of a grasping and interested faction, whose object in

raising the cry of cheap bread, was less the welfare of the working man,

than the depression of his wages, and a corresponding additional profit to

themselves. The decline of agricultural prosperity--inevitable if the

anticipations of the free traders should be fulfilled--seems to us an evil

of the greatest possible magnitude, and the more dangerous because the

operation must be necessarily slow. And in particular, we protested

against the introduction of free-trade measures, at a period when their

consideration was not called for by the pressure of any exigency, when the

demand for labour was almost without parallel, and before the merits of

the sliding-scale of duty, introduced by Sir Robert Peel himself in the

present Parliament, had been sufficiently tested or observed. Those who

make extravagant boast of the soundness and sagacity of their leader

cannot deny, that the facts upon which he based his plan of financial

reform, were in reality not facts, but fallacies. The political Churchill

enunciated his _Prophecy of Famine_, not hesitatingly nor doubtfully, but

in the broadest and the strongest language. Month after month glided away,

and still the famine came not; until men, marvelling at the unaccountable

delay, looked for it as the ignorant do for the coming of a predicted

eclipse, and were informed by the great astrologer of the day that it was

put off for an indefinite period! Now, when another and a more beautiful

harvest is just beginning, we find that in reality the prophecy was a mere

delusion; that there were no grounds whatever to justify any such

anticipation, and that the pseudo-famine was a mere stalking-horse,

erected for the purpose of concealing the stealthy advance of free-trade.

If this measure of free-trade was in itself right and proper, it required

no such paltry accessories and stage tricks to make it palatable to the

nation at large. Nay, we go further, and say, that under no circumstances

ought the distress of a single year to be assigned as a sufficient reason

for a great fiscal change which must derange the whole internal economy

and foreign relations of the country, and which must be permanent in its

effects. There is, and can be, no such thing as a permanent provision for

exigencies. Were it so, the art of government might be reduced to

principles as unerring in their operation as the tables of an assurance

company--every evil would be provided for before it occurred, and

fluctuations become as unknown among us as the recurrence of an

earthquake. A famine, had it really occurred, would have been no apology

for a total repeal of the corn-laws, though it might have been a good

reason for their suspension. As, however, no famine took place, we take

the prophecy at its proper value, and dismiss it at once to the limbo of

popular delusions; at the same time, we trust that future historians, when

they write this chapter of our chronicles, will not altogether overlook

the nature of the foundation upon which this change has been placed.

It requires no great penetration to discover how the repeal of the

corn-laws has been carried. The leaders of a powerful party who for ten

years misgoverned the country, were naturally desirous, after an exile of

half that period, to retaste the sweets of office--and were urged

thereunto, not only by their own appetites, but by the clamour of a

ravenous crew behind them, who cared nothing for principle. While in

power, they had remained most dogmatically opposed to the repeal of the

corn-laws. Lord Melbourne denounced the idea as maniacal--he was

supported in that view by almost every one of his colleagues; nor was it

until they found themselves upon the eve of ejectment, that any new light

ever dawned upon the minds of the steadfast myrmidons of Whiggery. The

election of 1841, which turned them out of office made matters worse

instead of better. They now saw no prospect of a restoration to power,

unless they could adopt some blatant cry similar to that which formerly

brought them in. Such a cry was rather difficult to be found. Their

ignorance of finance, their mismanagement abroad, their gross bungling of

almost every measure which they touched, had made them so unpopular that

the nation at large regarded their return to office much as a sufferer

from nightmare contemplates the arrival of his nocturnal visitant.

Undeterred by scruple or by conscience, they would with the greatest

readiness have handed over the national churches to the tender mercies of

the Dissenters, if such a measure could have facilitated their recall to

the pleasant Goshen of Downing Street. It was not however, either

advisable or necessary to carry matters quite so far. Midway between them

and revolution lay the corn-law question once despised but now very

valuable as a workable engine. The original advocates of abolition were

not prime favourites with the Whigs. The leaders of that party have always

been painfully and even ludicrously particular abut their associates.

Liberal in appearance they yet bind themselves together with a thin belt

of aristocratic prejudice and though insatiable in their lust for public

applause, they obstinately refuse to strengthen their coterie by any more

popular addition. They found the corn-law question in the hands of Messrs

Cobden, Bright and Wilson--men of the people--who by their own untiring

energy and the efforts of the subsidiary League, had brought the question

prominently forward, and were fighting independent of party, a sort of

guerilla battle in support of their favourite principle. Our regard for

these gentlemen is not of the highest order, but we should do them great

injustice if we did not bear testimony to the zeal and perseverance they

have exhibited throughout. These are qualities which may be displayed

alike in a good and in an evil cause; and yet earnestness of purpose is at

all times a high attribute of manhood, and enforces the respect of an

enemy. With the constitution of the League we have at present nothing to

do. The organization and existence of such a body, for the purposes of

avowed agitation, was a fact thoroughly within the cognisance of

ministers--it was checked, and is now triumphant, and may therefore prove

the precursor of greater democratic movements.

The question of the corn-laws was, however, emphatically theirs. A body of

men, consisting almost entirely of master manufacturers, had conceived the

project of getting rid of a law which interfered materially, according to

their views, with the profit and interests of their class. Their arguments

were specious, their enthusiasm in the cause unbounded. They spared no

exertions, grudged no expense, to obtain converts; they set up gratuitous

newspapers, hired orators, held meetings, established bazars--in short

erected such a complicated machine of agitation as had never before

entered into the minds of democrats to conceive. With all this however,

their success, save for political accident, was doubtful. The leaders of

the League were not popular even with their own workmen. Some of the

simpler rules of political economy are tolerably well known among the

operative classes, and of these none is better understood than the

relationship betwixt the prices of labour and of food. Cheap bread, if

accompanied at the same time by a reduction of wages, was at best but a

questionable blessing; nor were these doubts at all dispelled by the

determined resistance of the master manufacturers to every scheme proposed

for shortening the hours of labour, and ameliorating the social as well as

the moral condition of the poor. All that the taskmaster cared for was the

completion of the daily tale. The truck system--that most infamous species

of cruel and tyrannical robbery--gave sad testimony of the extent, as well

as the meanness, of the avarice which could wring profit even from the

most degraded source, and which absolutely sought to establish, here,

within the heart of Britain, a slavery as complete and more odious than

that which is the disgrace of the American republic. It is, therefore, not

to be wondered at if the great mass of the working population regarded the

proceedings of the Anti-Corn-law League with apathy and indifference. For,

be it remarked, that the original Leaguers were by no means thorough-paced

free-traders. Their motive was to deal most summarily with every

restriction which stood in the way of their business, both as regarded

export and import, and the establishment of a lower rate of wages. For

such purposes they were ready to sacrifice every interest in the

commonwealth except their own; but they showed no symptoms whatever of

anxiety to discard restriction wherever it was felt to be advantageous to

themselves. They were, in fact, the aspiring monopolists of the country.

In their disordered imagination, the future position of Britain was to be

that of one mighty workshop, from which the whole world was to be

supplied--a commonalty of cotton, calico, and iron, with a Birmingham and

Manchester aristocracy.

Such was the position of the League at the moment when the Whigs, eager

for a gathering-cry, came forward as auxiliaries; and yet we have some

doubt as to the propriety of that latter term. They did not come as

helpers--as men who, devoted in singleness of heart to the welfare of

their country, were anxious to assist in the promotion of a measure which

the sagacity of others had discovered--but claiming a sort of divine right

of opposition, similar to that which the lion exercises when the jackal

has run down the prey. Accordingly, upon the corn-laws did the magnanimous

Whig lion place its paw, and wheeze out a note of defiance against all

interlopers whatsoever. Henceforward that question was to be a Whig one.

English agriculture was not to receive its death from the ignoble hands of

Cobden and Co.

Such was the move of the Whigs in the month of November last. A paltrier

one, in every sense of the word, was never yet attempted nor did the

simultaneous conversion of the whole party, with scarcely more than one or

two honourable exceptions, present a very creditable specimen of the

integrity of her Majesty's Opposition. They had become convinced--why or

wherefore was not stated--that "the time had now arrived" for a total

repeal of the corn-laws, and there was an end of the matter. They were

prepared to vote for it in Parliament--to go to the country with it as

their rallying-cry--to adopt it, in short, as their readiest

stepping-stone into office. The old champions of repeal--the

Leaguers--might go about their business. The conduct of the question was

now transferred into the same hands which had become imbecile and

paralysed in 1841, but which had since been renovated and invigorated by a

wholesome course of five years' banishment from office.

It is somewhat remarkable, but rather instructive, that the Whigs do not

seem to have contemplated any other financial alteration beyond the repeal

of the corn-laws. Of an equitable adjustment of clashing interests, they

appear to have had no idea. It is quite true that they had been of old

well accustomed to a deep defalcation of the public revenue, and the

probability of the recurrence of _that_ fact, may have been viewed by them

as a mere bagatelle. From vague and general protestations of economy, we

can form no proper estimate of the real nature of their plans. Economy, or

that paltry system of paring, which passes with the Whigs for such, is,

after all, a political virtue of minor import. What we require from every

administration is the adoption of such measures only as shall tend to

promote the general wealth and prosperity of the country; and, in

consequence, render more easy the payment of the national burdens. Any

fiscal change which affects the revenue, must, as a matter of course,

affect some particular class of the community. A certain yearly sum has to

be made up--no matter how--and every million which is remitted from one

source of the revenue must be supplied by another. It is this necessity

which renders the administration of our finances so difficult. Great

Britain, when she obtained her place in the foremost rank of nations, had

to pay a fancy price for that supremacy. Our system of taxation is not the

growth of a few years, but of a large tract of time, embracing periods of

enormous expenditure and of intense excitement. It is of the most complex

and artificial nature; for the reservoir of the state is filled from a

thousand separate sources, and not one of these can be cut off without

occasioning a greater drain upon the rest.

In such a state of things, it is quite natural that each particular

interest should be desirous to shift the burden from itself. This may not

be right nor proper, but it is natural; and the desire is greatly fostered

by the frequent changes which have of late been made in the financial

department, and by the alteration and adjustment of duties. The attack of

the League upon the agriculturists is a specimen of this, though upon the

largest scale; and the Whigs were quite ready to have lent it their

support, without any further consideration. That they were really and

sincerely converts to the new doctrine, we do not believe--but, if so, it

is little creditable to their understanding. The repeal of the corn-laws,

as a solitary and isolated measure, is, we maintain, an act of gross

injustice and impolicy--as part of a great financial reform, or rather

remodelment of our whole system, it may bear a different character. The

Whigs, however, in adopting it, gave no promise of an altered system. The

creed and articles of the League were ready made, and sufficient for them,

nor did they think it necessary to enlarge the sphere of their financial

relief; and so, towards the end of last year, they presented themselves in

the quality of aspirants for office.

It is to us matter of great and lasting regret, that this move was not met

by Sir Robert Peel and his cabinet with a front of determined resistance.

Whatever may be the opinions of the late premier, of Lords Aberdeen and

Lincoln, or any other members of that cabinet, on the abstract advantages

of free-trade, we still hold that they were bound, in justice to the great

body of gentlemen whose suffrages in the House of Commons had carried them

into power, to have pursued a very different course. It is in vain for

them to take shelter under their privileges or their duties as ministers

of the crown. Their official dignity by no means relieved them from the

pledges, direct or implied, in virtue of which alone they were elevated to

that position. The understanding of the country at large was broad and

clear upon the point, that the agricultural interest should not suffer

from the acts of the late administration; and it was their duty, as well

as their true interest, to have kept that confidence inviolate.

The financial plans of Sir Robert Peel have not yet been fully expounded.

Over-caution has always been his characteristic and his misfortune. It is

beyond dispute, that, in point of tact and business talent, he has no

superior; but he either does not possess, or will not exhibit, that

frankness which is necessary to make a leader not only respected but

beloved; and hence it is that he has again alienated from himself the

confidence of a large proportion of his followers. Enough, however, has

transpired to convince us that his scheme is of a much more comprehensive

nature than any which has been yet submitted. Various acts of his

administration have shown a strong tendency towards free-trade. The

establishment of the property and income tax, though apparently laid on to

retrieve the country from the effects of Whig mismanagement, seemed to us

at the time very ominous of a coming fiscal change. It organized a

machinery by means of which direct taxation, however graduated, became the

simplest method of raising the revenue; and the revision of the tariff was

doubtless another step in the same direction.

If on these foundations it was intended to rear a perfect system of

free-trade--by which we understand an abolition of all restrictions and

protections, of all duties and customs on exports and on imports--and the

substitution, for revenue purposes, of direct taxation, we think that the

country may fairly complain of having been kept most lamentably in the

dark. It is a great--nay, a gigantic plan--one which certainly would

simplify or remove many of the intricacies of government,--it might

possibly put an end, as is most desirable, to all clashing interests at

home, and might open up abroad a new and greater field to the operations

of British industry. All these are possible, nay, probable results--at the

same time we are quite justified in saying, that if so wide and important

a change was really contemplated, it was somewhat hazardous, and surely

unprecedentedly bold, to keep it all the time concealed from public

observation, and to give a different gloss and colour to the measures

devised for its advancement. In reality, a more momentous question than

this does not exist. The fortunes of every man in this country are more or

less bound up with it,--it is one of the deepest import to our colonies,

and calculated to affect the whole range of our commercial relations. We

say further, that such a measure is not one which ought to be considered

in detail--that is, brought about by the gradual abolition of different

imposts without reference to the general end--but that, if entertained, it

ought to be proclaimed at once, and carried into effect so soon as the

nation has been enabled to pronounce an opinion upon it.

Our surmises are, of course, conjectural; for hitherto Sir Robert Peel has

chosen to wear the mask of mystery, and has enunciated nothing clearly,

beyond a single statement, to the effect that the late bills for the

regulations of corn and the customs formed only a part of a larger

measure. It is to this reserve that Sir Robert owes his defeat; and we

cannot but deeply regret that he should have thought fit to persevere in

it at so serious a cost as the dismemberment of his party. We have a

strong and rooted objection to this kind of piecemeal legislation. It is,

we think, foreign to the genius of this country, which requires the

existence between the minister and his supporters of a certain degree of

confidence and reciprocity which in this case has certainly not been

accorded to the latter. The premier of Britain is not, and cannot be,

independent of the people. It is their confidence and opinion which does

practically make or mar him; and in the House of Commons, no measure

whatever ought to be proposed by a minister without a full and candid

admission of its real object, an exposition of its tendencies, and, at

least, an honest opinion of its results.

There were, we think two courses open to Sir Robert Peel and his cabinet,

either of which might have been adopted, after the issue of the Russell

manifesto, with perfect consistency. The first of these, and the manlier

one, was a steady adherence, during the existence of the present

Parliament, to the established commercial regulations. They had already

done quite enough to free them from any charge of bigotry--they had

modified the corn-duties, with the consent even of the agricultural body,

who were induced to yield to that change on the ground that thereby a

permanent settlement of the question would be effected, and a baneful

agitation discontinued. It is quite true that neither of these results

followed. The settlement was not held to be permanent; and the agitation,

as is always the case after partial concession, was rather increased than

diminished. This, however, was a cogent reason why the ministry should not

have proceeded further. Under their guidance, and at their persuasion, the

agriculturists had already made a large concession, and that easiness of

temper on their part ought not to have been seized on as a ground for

further innovation. Within the walls of Parliament the Conservative party

possessed a large majority; without, if we except the manifestations of

the League, there was no popular cry whatever against the operation of the

sliding-scale. Even with the prospect of a bad winter--an auxiliary

circumstance not unlooked for by the Whigs--Lord John Russell and his

colleagues would have had no chance whatever of unseating their political

rivals, supported as these were by the votes of the country party. Had

distress absolutely occurred, the means of remedying the more immediate

pressure of the evil were in the hands of ministers, who, moreover, would

have been cordially assisted by every one in any scheme calculated to ward

away famine from the door of the industrious and the poor. In short,

there was no political necessity for any such precipitate change.

Far better, therefore, would it have been for the late ministry had they

remained uninfluenced by the interested conversion of the Whigs. By doing

so they would have saved both character and consistency, without impairing

in the least degree the strength of her Majesty's government--an excuse

which the experience of a few mouths has shown to be utterly fallacious.

How, indeed, could it be otherwise? Was it conceivable that a change of

policy upon a point on which an immense majority of the supporters were

distinctly pledged, could _add_ to the permanent strength of the

ministry?--was no allowance to be made for irritated feelings, for broken

ties, for inevitable desertion on the part of those who believe themselves

to be wantonly betrayed? The Duke of Wellington surrendered his own

private opinion in order that her Majesty's government might be carried

on! A sentiment which might have been applauded to the echo in ancient

times but which, it must be confessed by all, is wholly inapplicable to

the notions of the century in which we live. The result has proved it. Her

Majesty's government was indeed able by joining with the Whig-Radical

faction, or rather by adopting their game to carry the corn-bill by the

most incongruous majority ever counted out in the lobby of St Stephens,

but at their very next step the day of reckoning arrived. Indeed the

presages of their coming fall was so apparent, that the Irish coercion

bill--the measure which more than any other if we may believe the tissue

of bloody and disgusting facts upon which its introduction was founded

demanded attention and despatch--was put off from day to day, lest a

hostile division upon it should oust the ministry before the corn-bill

could be carried through the House of Lords and receive the royal assent.

Had Sir Robert Peel and his supporters been wedded from their infancy

upwards to free-trade opinions--had these been the golden dreams of their

political life-principles which they had adhered to, and sworn by, through

many a long year of adversity and opposition--they could not have

manifested a more unseemly haste in seizing upon the favourable moment,

and paralysing all the efforts of the agricultural party, at a time when

their own official existence was fast drawing to its close. Public

opinion, as we are now told from a very high source, ought always to guide

a minister in the formation of his measures, irrespective of the

considerations of party. The axiom is indeed a true one, but true only

when followed out according to the letter of the constitution. Public

opinion is to be gathered neither from the voice, however loudly

expressed, of a clamant faction like the League--nor from the sentiments

enunciated by a changeable press, which shifts oftener, according to the

flow of its own proper interests, than the quicksands of the deceitful

Solway--nor even from the votes of renegades, who promised one thing upon

the hustings and promoted the reverse in Parliament--but from the

sentiments of the electors of the country, from _their_ votes and _their_

understanding, which have not been appealed to since 1841, when

deliberately and unmistakeably they pronounced in favour of protection.

This brings us to the alternative course, which, without any peril of

honesty or of honour, was open to the late ministry. We mean, a clear and

unreserved declaration of their future policy, and an appeal to the

country for its support. If Sir Robert Peel was convinced in his own mind

that the principles of protection which he had hitherto advocated were in

themselves objectionable--that the time had arrived for a great experiment

whereby the whole taxation of the realm should be remodelled, and the many

smaller sources of revenue abolished, in order to make way for a broader

and a simpler system--if, furthermore, he believed that the continuance

even of such agitation as prevailed upon the subject of the corn-laws, was

likely to become more serious and more hurtful to the general interest by

the factious declaration of the Whigs--then, he had it in his power at

once to test the opinion of the country, by offering to the crown the

alternative of his resignation or a dissolution of Parliament; and upon

obtaining the latter, to have put forth, in unambiguous language, a

statement of the policy which he intended thereafter to pursue, so that

the constituencies of the empire might fairly have chosen between

adherence to the ancient, or adoption of the novel plan. We can admit of

no excuse such as the stoppage of private business, or any other similar

impediment. These are reasons which, if just, might apply to every

dissolution of Parliament short of the statutory term; nor can they in the

present instance be brought forward, since the late government were by

their own confession seriously perplexed by the amount of railway and

other bills which this session have been crowded before Parliament, and

had sought, without discovering, some method which might check at an early

stage the flood of untoward speculation. In such a crisis as this, private

interests ought to have been as nothing in comparison with the public

good. If the choice lay between free-trade in its widest sense, and

protection, it was but common justice that the country should have had the

opportunity of making its selection. In no other way can public opinion be

gathered. At last general election the country declared for

protection--ministers since then have manoeuvred that protection away.

We were told that certain compensations were to be given; but, alas! the

ministry is no more, and compensation has perished with it. The old

balance has been disturbed, and the task of adjusting a new one--if that

indeed be contemplated--is now left to weak and incompetent hands.

Most heartily, therefore, do we regret that these great changes, which

have free-trade for their ultimate object, were commenced in the present

Parliament. Sir Robert Peel cannot but have foreseen--indeed he

acknowledged it--that the corn-bill could not be carried without a

complete disorganization of the Conservative party. In his eyes this may

seem a small matter, but we view it very differently. It has shaken, and

that to a great degree, the confidence which the people of the country

were proud to place in the declarations and sincerity of the government.

It has generated a belief, now very common, that the plain course of open

and manly dealing has been abandoned for a system of finesse; and that for

the last few months--it may be longer--the leaders of the two great

political parties have been playing a match at chess, with less regard to

the safety of the instruments they were using, than to the exhibition of

their own adroitness. Perhaps no minister of this country ever owed more

to party than Sir Robert Peel; and yet, without the excuse of strong

necessity, he has not only abandoned that party, but placed it in a false

position. The majority of the Conservatives were sent to Parliament under

clear and distinct pledges, which honour forbade them to violate. This of

the corn-laws was so far from being a discretionary question, that the

continuance or discontinuance of agricultural protection was the great

theme of the hustings at last general election, and their opinions upon

that point became the touchstone on which the merits of the respective

candidates were tried. It is worse than vain to talk of Parliamentary

freedom, and the right of honourable members to act irrespective of the

opinion of their constituents. They are neither more nor less than the

embodied representatives of that opinion; and no man of uprightness or

honour--we say it deliberately--ought to retain his seat in the House of

Commons after the confidence of his supporters is withdrawn. It is neither

fair nor honourable to taunt members with having been too free and liberal

with their pledges before they knew the policy of their leaders. All men

do not possess that happy ambiguity of phrase which can bear a double

construction, and convey one meaning to the ear of the listener, whilst

another served for the purposes of future explanation. It is not pleasant

to believe that we are moving in an atmosphere of perpetual deceit. It is

not wholesome to be forced to construe sentences against their obvious and

open meaning, or to suspect every public speaker of wrapping up equivoques

in his statement. At the last general election there was no

misunderstanding. The Conservative candidates believed that their leaders

were resolved to uphold protection; the people believed so likewise, and

in consequence they gave them a majority. Situated as the protectionists

were, they had no alternative but to act in accordance with their first

professions, and to maintain their trust inviolate.

We have no pleasure in referring to that tedious and protracted debate.

Yet this much we are bound to say, that the country party, under

circumstances of unparalleled discouragement, abandoned, nay, opposed by

their former chiefs, and deprived of the benefit which they undoubtedly

would have received from the great talents and untiring energy of Lord

Stanley--a champion too soon removed from the Lower House--did

nevertheless acquit themselves manfully and well, and have earned the

respect of all who, whatever may be their opinions, place a proper value

upon consistency. It was perhaps inevitable that in such a contest there

should have been a display of some asperity. We cannot blame those who,

believing themselves to have been betrayed, gave vent to their indignation

in language less measured than becomes the dignity of the British senate:

nor, had these displays been confined to the single question then at

issue, should we have alluded even remotely to the subject. But whilst our

sympathies are decidedly with the vanquished party--whilst we deplore as

strongly as they can the departure of the ministers from their earlier

policy at such a time and in such a manner--we cannot join with the more

violent of the protectionists in their virulent denunciations of Sir

Robert Peel, and we demur as to the policy of their vote upon the Irish

coercion bill, which vote was the immediate instrument of recalling the

Whigs to power.

Sir Robert Peel has told us that he is contented to be judged by

posterity. He is so far wise in his appeal. The opinions of contemporaries

are comparatively worthless on a matter like this, and very few of us are

really able to form an unprejudiced opinion. But, unless we are greatly

mistaken, he does not contemplate the possibility of appearing before that

tribunal in his present posture and condition. There is much yet to come

upon which he must depend, not only for a posthumous verdict, but for that

which we hope he may yet receive, an honourable acquittal from those who

are at present alienated from his side. As the foe to agricultural

protection, he can look but for sorry praise--as the financial reformer of

the whole national system, he may, though at heavy risk, become a public

benefactor. Every thing depends upon the future. He has chosen to play a

very close and cautious game. His is a style of legislation not palatable

to the nation; for he has taken upon himself too boldly the functions and

responsibilities of a dictator--he has aspired to govern the freest

country of the world without the aid of party--and he has demanded a

larger and more implicit confidence, even whilst withholding explanation,

than any minister has ever yet exacted from the representatives of the

people. The risk, however, is his. But clearly, in our opinion, it was not

the policy of the protectionists, after the corn-bill was carried and past

control, to take a nominal revenge upon their former leader, and eject him

from office by a vote inconsistent with their previous professions. By

doing so, they have relieved him of the necessity which must soon have

become imperative, of announcing the full nature of his scheme of

financial reform; they have contributed to an interregnum, possibly of

some endurance, from which we do not augur much advantage to the public

welfare; and, finally, they have in some degree relinquished the credit

and the strength of their position. From the moment the corn-bill was

carried, they should have resolved themselves into a corps of observation.

Their numbers were formidable enough to have controlled either party; and

in all future measures, whenever explanation was required, they were in a

condition to have enforced it.

The step, however, has been taken, and it is of course irremediable. All

that remains for them and for us is to watch the progress of events during

the remainder of the present Parliament--a period which, so far as we can

judge from recent disclosures, is likely to pass over without any very

marked attempts at innovation. The Whigs are at present too happy in the

resumption of office, to be actually dangerous. They are, or they profess

to be, in high good-humour. They have thrown aside for a time the besom of

Radical reform, and are now extending in place of it the olive-branch of

peace to each different section of their antagonists. We look, however, a

little below the surface, and we think that we can discover two very

cogent reasons for this state of singular placidity. In the first place,

the Whigs are in a minority in the House of Commons. Their political walk

cannot extend a yard beyond the limits of Sir Robert's sufferance; and as

the boundary line, like the Oregon, has not been clearly laid down, they

will be most cautious to avoid transgression. In the second place, they

are, as is well known, most miserably divided in opinion among themselves.

There is no kind of coherency in the councils of the present cabinet. They

cannot approach any single great question without the imminent risk of

internal discord; and it is only so long as they can remain quiescent that

any show of cordiality can be maintained among them. Accordingly, when we

look to Lord John Russell's manifestoes, we are quite delighted with their

imbecility. As a matter of course, he has put forward, in the first rank

of his declarations, the usual vague rhetoric about the social improvement

of the people, which is to be effected by the same means which the Whigs

have always used towards that desirable end--viz. by doing nothing. Then

there is the subject of education, which we must own opens up a vast field

for the exertions of government, if they will only seriously undertake it.

This, however, cannot be done without the establishment of a new

department in the state, which ought to have been created long ago--we

mean a board, with a Minister of public instruction at its head; but we

hardly expect that Lord John Russell will vigorously proceed to its

formation. Then come what are called sanatory measures, by which we

understand an improved system of sewerage, and a larger supply of water to

the inhabitants of the towns. On this point, we understand, the whole of

the cabinet are united, and we certainly rejoice to hear it. It is

certainly the first time in our experience, that a ministry has founded

its claims to public support on the ground of a promised superintendence

of drains and water-carts. Upon this topic, one of the members for

Edinburgh was extremely eloquent the other day upon the hustings. We hope

sincerely that he is in earnest, and that, for the credit of Whig

legislation, since we cannot obtain it from the municipality, our citizens

may occasionally be indulged with the sight of a sprinkled street in

summer, and that some means will be adopted for irrigating the closes,

which at present do stand most sorely in need of the sanatory services of

the scavenger. This point, then, of sewerage we freely concede to the

Whigs. Let them grapple with it manfully, annihilate all the

water-companies in the realm, and give us an unlimited supply of the pure

fresh element without restriction or assessment. They cannot be employed

more harmlessly--nay, more usefully, than in such a task. Let them also

look to the points of adequate endowment for hospitals, and the

institution of public baths and washing-houses, and for once in their

lives they shall promote measures of real importance and benefit to the

poor.

But, unfortunately, sewerage and its concomitants form but a small part of

the considerations connected with the government of this country. A

ministry may ask some popularity, but it can hardly found a claim for

permanency on the fact of its attention to drains. In the first place,

Lord John Russell and his colleagues have serious difficulties before them

in the state of the public revenue. The late fiscal changes cannot but

have the effect of causing a most serious defalcation, which must be

immediately and summarily supplied. It will not do to attribute this

defalcation to the acts of the late government, since the Whigs were not

only the cordial supporters of these measures, but were ready to have

taken the initiative. They are as much answerable as Sir Robert Peel, if,

at the end of the present year, the accounts of Exchequer shall exhibit a

large deficiency, which cannot, consistently with their own policy, be

remedied by any new indirect taxation. The moment that free-trade is

adopted as a broad principle, there can be no going back upon former

steps. There is no resource left except a direct appeal to the purse,

which may, indeed, be made by an additional income-tax, if the country are

of a temper to submit to it. But we apprehend that a good deal of

negotiation will be necessary before any such measure can be carried. The

agriculturists are not in a mood to submit to any further burdens. The

eyes of the productive classes are by this time a little opened to the

effects of foreign importation, and their trade has been already much

crippled by the influx of manufactured articles from abroad. Above all, a

strong conviction is felt, both in England and in Scotland, of the gross

injustice of the system which throws the whole burden of the direct

taxation upon the inhabitants of these two countries, whilst Ireland is

entirely free. It is a system which admits of no excuse, and which cannot

continue long. The immunities which Ireland already enjoyed were any thing

but reasons for exempting her from the operation of income-tax. It is not

a question of relative poverty, for the scale is so adjusted that no man

is taxed except according to his possession; and it does seem utterly

inexplicable, and highly unjust to the Scotsman who pays his regular

assessments, and a per centage besides upon his income of L150, that the

Irishman, in similar circumstances, should be exempt from either charge.

It was this feeling, we believe, more than any other, which rendered the

increased grant to Maynooth college obnoxious to the greater part of the

British nation; and which, setting aside all other considerations, would

at once seal the fate of any ministry that might be rash enough to propose

the endowment of the Romish clergy out of the consolidated fund. An

increased direct taxation, therefore, would, under present circumstances,

be a most dangerous experiment for the Whigs; and yet, if they do not

attempt it, how are they to make good the almost certain deficiency of the

revenue?

Probably that point may be postponed for future consideration. Sufficient

for the day is the evil thereof, and the sugar-duties are more immediately

pressing. Whether the West Indian proprietors are to receive the

_coup-de-grace_ during the present year, or whether they are to be allowed

a further respite, seems at the present a matter of absolute uncertainty.

It is, however, merely a question of time. Free-trade cares not for the

colonies; and, indeed, whilst the work of protective abolition is going on

so rapidly both at home and abroad, no isolated interest has reason to

expect that it will be exempted from the common rule. Ireland, it seems,

is to have an extension of the franchise; and with respect to her social

grievances, Lord John Russell is hopeful that his ministry will be enabled

"to afford, not a complete and immediate remedy, _but some remedy--some

kind of improvement; so that some kind of hope may be entertained that_,

SOME TEN OR TWELVE YEARS HENCE, the country will, by the measures we

undertake, be in a far better state with respect to the frightful

destitution and misery which now prevail in that country." Here is a

precious enunciation of principles and grammar!--A complete remedy for the

Irish social grievances is avowedly out of the power of the most intrepid

of Whig politicians--a confession of which we presume Mr O'Connell will

not be slow to avail himself. But then he expects--or, to use his own

phraseology thinks--"it is _most likely_ to be in our power to afford"

_some_ remedy, _some_ kind of improvement, the nature of which is still in

embryo, but which shall be so matured that _some_ kind of hope may be

entertained, that in _some_ ten or twelve years hence the country may be

in a far better state with regard to the destitution which now prevails in

the country! Was there ever, we ask, in the whole history of oracles, any

thing more utterly devoid of meaning, more thoroughly and helplessly

vague, than the above declaration? Why, the whole hopes of the noble scion

of the house of Russell are filtered away to nothing before he has

achieved the limits of his sentence. There are four or five different

stages of trust through which we decline to follow him, being perfectly

convinced that the hope of his being likely to introduce any such

measure, is quite as improbable as the implied hope conveyed a little

further on, to the effect that he and his party may be allowed to remain

for some ten or twelve years in office, until these exceedingly musty

ideas all have resolved themselves into a tangible form.

In the mean time it is some gratification to know that the Churches are to

be spared for the present. Not that Lord John Russell has any abstract

love for these institutions--for he has no objection to Romish endowment

out of the funds of the Irish Protestant Church--but then he is quite

aware that any such move on his part would lead to his instant and

ignominious expulsion from power. Earl Grey is of a different opinion; but

the construction of the present cabinet is such, that it admits of every

possible diversity of opinion, and was, in fact, so planned by the new

premier, that the lion and the lamb might lie down together, and Radical

Ward be installed in peace by the side of Conservative Lord Lincoln and of

Sidney Herbert, about a year ago the pride of the protectionists!

There is something painfully ludicrous in Lord John's exposition of the

theories of cabinet construction. It was, as he experienced last winter,

quite impossible to bring the chiefs of his party to any thing like a

common understanding. The revelations of Mr Macaulay to his correspondent

in Edinburgh, gave any thing but a flattering picture of the unity which

then pervaded the councils of Chesham Place. It is gratifying to know,

that individuals who at that time expressed so exalted an opinion of the

intellects and temper of each other, should have met and consented to act

together in a spirit of mutual forgiveness. And we are now asked to

receive from the lips of Lord John this profound political axiom, that it

is not at all necessary that members of the same cabinet should agree in

their individual opinions. We have all heard of cabinets breaking up

through their own internal dissensions. Such a disruption, in the eyes of

Lord John, was an act of egregious folly. What was to have prevented each

man from voting according to his own opinions? On urgent questions, he

admits, they should maintain some show of unanimity; but, with all respect

for such an authority, we think he is unnecessarily scrupulous. Why

quarrel or dissolve upon any single point? Let every man vote according to

his own mind--let every question be considered an open one--and we shall

answer for the stability of the ministry. In fact, Lord John Russell has

at last discovered the political _elixir vitae_. No disunion can break up

his administration, because disunion is the very principle upon which it

has been formed. He has sought support from all classes of men. He is so

far from disapproving of Conservative doctrines, that he absolutely has

solicited three members of the late government to hold office under him.

He asks no recantation of their former opinions, and binds them down to no

pledges for the future. Their associates, it is true, are to be men of

liberal opinions, some of them verging upon Chartism, and others avowed

ecclesiastical destructionists; but that need not deter them from

accepting and retaining office. We once knew a worthy Highland chief--a

more hospitable being never breathed--who towards the conclusion of his

third bottle, invariably lapsed into an affectionate polemical mood, and

with tears in his eyes used to put this question to his friends--"Why

can't a man be a Christian and a good fellow at the same time?" This is

just the theory of Lord John Russell. He can see no objection to diversity

of opinions, so long as the whole body of the cabinet are agreed upon one

essential point--that of holding fast by office; and surrendering it upon

no account whatever.

Accordingly, when we look narrowly into his manifesto, we find that he has

chalked out for himself a course which makes this singular coalition by no

means absolutely impossible. He will do nothing, if he can help it, which

may give offence to any body. The cabinet are to have an easy task of it.

They have nothing to do but to sit still with uplifted oars, and allow the

vessel of the state to drift quietly along with the stream. We fear,

however, that the Whig Palinurus has not taken into account the existence

of such things as shoals and sand-banks. Let him provide what crew he

pleases, the keel, unless we are sadly mistaken, will erelong be grating

upon some submerged impediment; and then he will have a fair opportunity

of testing the discipline of his motley band. Neither sewerage nor

education can well be expected to last for ever. Enormous interests are at

present placed in his charge; and these, handled and deranged as they have

been of late, will not admit of idling or inattention. There can be no

dawdling with these as with the Irish social measures. They will not stand

the postponement of some ten or twelve years; nor will Lombard Street

permit a second derangement of the financial affairs of the nation. In the

manufacturing districts, the workmen are demanding the relief of a

controlling factory bill, and on that point the cabinet is divided. The

railway system requires particular attention, less for the sake of

remedying past ministerial neglect, than of regulating future proceedings.

The affairs of the colonies may erelong require the superintendence of a

calm, temperate, and experienced head; and, finally, there is the question

of revenue and the inchoate system of free-trade. There is quite enough

work ready to the hand of the present ministry, if they only choose to

undertake it. The country party, we believe, will form an effective and a

watchful opposition, and will prove the best safeguard against any rash or

uncalled-for experiments. Situated as they now are, they have no other

functions to perform; and we would earnestly entreat of them, during the

period which must elapse between the present time and the next general

election, to bury, in so far as may be, all animosity for the past; and to

reflect seriously in what manner the changes, which are now inevitable,

may be best carried out for the benefit of the nation at large. The

artificial fabric which has been reared during many years of conquest and

successful industry, has now been deprived of its equipoise, and is fast

becoming a ruin We thought, and we still think, that it may be difficult

to find a better; but the work of demolition has already commenced, and we

must do what we can to assist in the construction of another. At all

events, we are entitled to insist upon working rigidly by plan. Let us

know what we are about to do, before we bind our hands to any partial and

one-sided measure; and, above all things, let us take care that the poorer

classes of our fellow-subjects shall not suffer privation or want of

employment during the adjusting and development of the new commercial

theories. A little time will show their actual value. Long before the

invention of the Irish social remedies, we shall be enabled to judge how

far the free-trade policy of England is likely to be reciprocated

abroad--we shall learn too, by the sure index of the balance-sheet,

whether these changes are operating towards our loss or our gain; and we

shall also have some opportunity of testing the efficiency of the present

administration. Let us, at all events, be prepared for future action; and

since we cannot altogether dismiss from our minds the political history of

the last few months, let us make it a useful lesson. It may be instructive

for future statesmen to learn how the most powerful party in this age and

country has been broken up and severed, not by any act of their own, but

by the change of policy of their leader. It may also teach then the value

of candour and of open dealing--virtues of such universal application,

that we cannot yield to doctrines which would exclude then even from the

councils of a cabinet.

_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._

Footnotes:

[1] _Notes and Recollections of a Professional Life._ By the late WM.

FERGUSSON, M.D., Inspector-General of Military Hospitals. Longmans: 1846.

_The Military Miscellany._ By HENRY MARSHALL, F.R.S.E., Deputy

Inspector-General of Army Hospitals. Murray: 1846.

[2] Sir Charles Napier.

[3] "The author, soon after his last return from the West Indies, at the

close of the year 1817, was induced, from the then troubled state of the

country, to join the ranks of a volunteer corps in Scotland, which was

drilled and instructed by experienced men in all manner of ways, with the

exception of the one thing needful--the firing ball--for during the whole

time he remained with them, nearly two years, that was never thought of;

and this was the case generally with the whole volunteer force of Great

Britain, as well as the militia, at least in the early part of the war.

Future wars must and will recur, and volunteer corps will again be formed;

but if they be unused to the full-charged musket, however much their first

appearance may impose, they will be found, when brought into action, of as

much use as so many Chinese. Let them not suppose that until they have

attained this skill, which it is in the power of every man to do, they are

qualified to fight the battles of their country. * * * * In their present

state, supposing two such bodies to get into collision, it would indeed be

matter of wonder to think how they could contrive to kill one another

without the aid of the cannon and other adjuncts. If they carried

broomsticks on their shoulders, instead of muskets, they would no doubt

make a sturdy fight of it; but with fire-arms which they had never been

taught to use, the battle would resemble those of the Italian republics in

the middle ages, when mailed knights fought the livelong day without

mortal casualty."--DR FERGUSSON, p. 42.

Is ball practice sufficiently attended to in our army generally? We are

inclined to doubt it. "We are economical people," says Dr Ferguson in

another place, "famed for straining at gnats and swallowing camels, and

the expense of ball cartridge is ever brought up in bar of the soldier

being in the constant habit of firing it." We should also like to see some

of our muskets replaced by rifles, an arm in which we have ever been

deficient.

[4] Macaulay's _Miscellaneous Essays_. Article _Dryden_.

[5] Ranke's _History of the Popes_ is a most valuable addition to

historical knowledge; but no one will assign it a place beside Livy or

Gibbon.

[6] Macaulay's _Essays_. Article _Dryden_.

[7]

"Those rules of old discover'd, not devised,

As Nature still, but Nature methodised:

Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd

By the same laws which first herself ordain'd.

Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites,

When to repress, and when indulge our flights:

* * * * *

Just precepts thus from great examples given,

She drew from them what they derived from heaven."

_Essay on Criticism._

[8] _Peru._ _Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren_, 1838-1842. Von J. J. VON

TSCHUDI. Volume the second.

[9] "Por un clavo se pierde una herradura, por una herradura un cavallo,

por un cavallo un caballero."

[10] Stevenson, in his work on South America, refers to the extraordinary

longevity of the Peruvian Indians. In the church register at Barranca, he

found recorded the deaths of eleven persons in the course of seven years,

whose joint ages made up 1207 years, giving an average of 110 years per

man. Dr Tschudi mentions an Indian in Jauja, still living in 1839, and who

was born, if the register and the priest's word might be believed, in the

year 1697. Since the age of eleven years he had made a moderate daily use

of coca. However old, few Indians lose their teeth or hair.

[11] _Godo_, _goth_, the nickname given by Peruvian Indians to the

Spaniards.

[12] _The Gastronomic Regenerator; a Simplified and entirely New System of

Cookery, &c._ By MONSIEUR A. SOYER, of the Reform Club. London; 1846.