the recess may need as firm a master-hand as the troublesomeness of the session. quieter atmosphere of the lords, and see what cheer we find there for the leaderless cabinet. There is the coming dearth. It may not be so What lieutenant shall step to the van and lead the bad as we once feared in England; it may be band still onward? Shall it be Lord Stanley 1-8 worse in Ireland; but come in what shape it may, partisan, but no general-a political Cain, always it cannot be left alone; it will need a minister, cool, in colonial scrapes. Perhaps there will be some bold, prudent, and fertile in resources. There is change of the corn-laws, and the south-eastern the railway chaos, with its two great elements, colonies will look out for their share of the benfinancial confusion and legislative confusion; the efit; but Lord Stanley is pledged against them, one needing control, the other amendment. But under his own hand and seal; and it will need the the influences of disorder are strong, those who superior mind to brush aside that querulous pledge. profit by it cunning; and it will demand a states-Lord Aberdeen is a most discreet and respectable man of known force to bend the spirit of contu- diplomatist; and, like all diplomatists, he needs macy to submission. There is Ireland to keep "his government" to refer to; he cannot head a tranquil, without emboldening her, without start-cabinet-he must belong to it. Lord Lyndhurst ling her, without exasperating. There is the is essentially a professional man; he could answer Oregon question to be negotiated, with a view not an opposition, not only with speeches but with to official parade and bullying, but to substantial measures, and with ingenious ones too; but other justice and the real interests of the nation. There people must see that they fit a general policy. are a host of questions arising and reärising abroad Moreover, he is growing old; and if, like good -in Turkey, Tahiti, Algiers, Greece, Spain, wine, he grows milder and more genial with age, France, Germany, Italy, California, China, New he grows also easier and more insouciant. Lord Zealand. There is England to look to in a novel Ripon is a sleeping partner. The Duke of Welcondition—with dear bread, and plenty of money lington has some of the elements of “greatness" -a grievance, and no lack of means to quarrel in a higher degree than any living statesmanabout it. There is the House of Commons to constitutional energy, simplicity, honesty; but the "lead;" the opposition to answer to answer, constructive faculty is wanted, especially in these not merely with speeches, but with a policy. times of busy peace, of driving haste, of railroad Suppose Sir Robert Peel suddenly removed from hazard. the scene-like Romulus by Mars, or like himself by the gout who is there to do all this work for him, not each at his post as journeyman but as master over all? The question is not easily answered. Sir James Graham is the premier's ablest colleague-a capital hand at official business; but it is not the mere administration of the home office that will suffice, however ably performed; it is the management of parties that is needed; the party of his "political friends" not being the least difficult. Shall Mr. Goulburn be the Peel ad interim for any purpose but making a financial statement-not always intrusted to him? Or shall we look below Mr. Goulburn among the other commoners of the cabinet? Let us pause for an instant and imagine the state of the house without Peel-each minister, freed from the master-control, left to his own resources in front of an exulting opposition. Fancy the elaborate coolness with which Lord John Russell would rise to deliver one of his plain, prolix, insidious, entrapping speeches-framed to make contradiction stumble into pitfalls of unpopular admissions to draw out the antagonist as far as possible, that other combatants, less superciliously scrupulous and more alert than the whig general, may take advantage of the exposure. Fancy Lord Palmerston's diplomatic bush-fighting-dodging his opponent all over the globe; Cobden's stunning economies, Sheil's piercing epigrams, Macaulay's copia fandi, Wilde's cogent casemaking, Fox Maule's stern Scotch morality, Charles Buller's crushing pleasantry, Rutherford's reasoning, Roebuck's sarcasm,-imagine all these weapons pointed at the ministers without a leader; to be answered on the spot, not only in effective words, but with valid statements, with declarations to be carried out, resources adopted on the instant, yet bearing to be stood by; with language neither yielding to mere ridicule or threat, nor going mad with mere hostility to whig cunning or liberal provocatives. The picture is one of dire confusion without end, except But let us escape from that turmoil into the It is a hopeless search; there is no second Robert Peel. Must we then be thrown back upon the whigs! -whom we last saw fall at their posts with nightmared energies-who had held to their places until hooted out-begging for time while they bombarded the lords" with "measures for rejection"-who mistook the "progress" of party for the "progress" of the country? But Sir Robert Peel is well again; and the question is staved off-for the present.-Spectator, 8 Nov. A THRENODY ON THE APPROACHING DEMISE BY THOMAS MOORE. I SEE, I see it is coming fast, But is it indeed then come to this, line. See, for an account of her farming operations, Ovid, Like another Babylon, vanish hence? As "slips o'er its slime the sleek slug-snail,"* CORN AND CORN LAWS. "Is there to be no order in council, then?" meets one at every turn, but never an answer to the question. There is no news on the subject, but only rumors scarcely worth notice, and abundance of newspaper-writing. Foremost in the latter has been the Times; which has had two elaborate and useful papers to show what would be the probable sources for importation if the ports were thrown open a compilation from materials which are not published, but which, we are made to understand, have been collected with great care, abroad as well as at home. We will rapidly state the general results. The principal countries of the west and south of Europe are at no time exporters of wheat. In France the present crop is probably not below the average, but also not more than sufficient to compensate for the destruction of other food. In Spain and Italy the harvest has been indifferent. Hungary is blessed with abundance; but that will be all required to make up for the deficiency in the other Austrian dominions. The stock at Trieste has never been so much reduced as it is now. In the lower provinces of the Danube and Moldavia the scarcity is great. The usually fertile provinces of Russia and Poland are this year importing. Sweden and Norway seldom grow enough for their own consumption, but this year Denmark has a harvest of singular abundance. Its excess, however, though large for so small a territory, will not go far as a relief to the necessities of other countries. Europe, therefore, will supply but little in our time of need: what of America? There the harvest has been excellent, the crop of Indian corn especially abundant. The consequences of the potato disease are less severely felt in that region. But the amount of agricultural produce available for exportation has been greatly exaggerated. The progress of the population almost outstrips the progress of tillage: the percentage of the export as compared with the population and gross produce has decreased since the end of last century; and the whole surplus produce of the United States to foreign countries, including Canada, is in fact grown in the territories north and west of the Ohio river, far from the shipping-ports of the Atlantic. For some years to A line borrowed, with but little alteration, from one of the Lake poets, the original being as follows:"Slow sliding o'er its slime the slippery sleek slug-snail." come it will not exceed twelve millions of bushels, or 1,500,000 quarters; and the largest importation direct to England, that of 1840, a year of uncommon abundance, was 615,972 bushels of wheat and 620,919 barrels of flour. The effect of our cornlaws has been to render this trade with us variable and uncertain-dependent on casualties, and not deliberately provided for. The subject of maize or Indian corn demands especial attention. Maize is eaten both green and ripe we have never tasted the green, so lauded by Cobbett: but the preparations of the meal have always seemed to our taste far from palatable: however, it is a wholesome grain, and almost as nutritious as wheat. The growth of it in the United States is most surprisingly abundant-fifty or sixty millions of quarters annually, with a population not exceeding twenty millions. Not a hundredth part of that quantity is exported in 1844 the quantity was 825,106 bushels in grain and 404,008 barrels in meal. It is in fact devoted to the fattening of pork; in which shape it is admissible to our provision-market, while the grain itself is excluded from our ports by the operation of the corn-laws. It could be delivered at Liverpool at 16s. a quarter, or at most 20s. "But the duty imposed on this grain by the existing corn-laws of England is the same as the duty on barley-that is to say, 11s. per quarter when the price is below 26s., and so on diminishing by the usual scale till the price is 37s. and the duty 1s.: this amounts in reality to a fixed duty of 11s., since no such grain is likely to be imported at all at a price above 26s." 66 Thus it appears that no very great amount of corn is available-that, however abruptly we might open the ports," not much would enter them. The measure might be imposing, and even consolatory to the feelings of the people, as showing a desire to do the best that could be done; but it is to be doubted whether the benefit derivable would be very large. On the other hand, it must be obvious that the longer such a measure is delayed, the more the small available supply will be diminished; since other countries are competing with us for it, and are at the same time closing their ports against the emission of grain. Mr. If these considerations blunt the desire for any hasty "opening of the ports," they say nothing for the corn-laws generally. Quite the reverse. Cobden puts a legitimate question when he asks why a law for "protection" should be abrogated when a protection most is needed-why a law professing to secure plenty should be set aside in time of dearth? In fact, the new corn-law has broken down. We now recognize its most positive working as a means of preventing the growth of corn for the English market in America, and compelling the maize which would be a blessing for the sanspotato Irish to be bestowed upon pigs in the wilds of the far west. Whether the ports be opened or not for a supply that is now nonexistent, the cornlaws are equally doomed; for they prevent the existence of that supply, and we find by bitter experience that we are not independent of it. We have tried that game once too often, and may we get safely through the experiment! The minister must be as deeply imbued with these conclusions as any other man. We can conceive that the very sense of the fact may form one of his difficulties in acting on the conviction. It is shrewdly suspected, particularly by his hostile friends," that he has in his heart condemned the 66 corn-laws to be abolished on fit occasion; and whenever he does so, the howl will be raised, that the occasion is a mere pretext. The actual necessity for the measure, therefore, and the peremptory wish of the people, must be glaringly apparent before he can move with safety. We believe that he need not fear; that a bold course would be justified by its own success, and bear down opposition. But an excess of discretion is the premier's besetting sin. He has sometimes carried caution, in the form of inaction, to a pitch of foolhardiness. The opening of the ports by a coup-de-main would be comparatively a small measure; but he cannot be too diligent in making known to the corn-growing countries of the globe that the impediment of the corn-laws is to be swept away.-Spectator, 15th Nov. WHAT TO DO WITH THE ROTTEN POTATOES.Pay the repeal rent and O'Connell tribute with them, as in kind.-Examiner. POTATOES.-The scientific commissioners have made two more reports on the potato disease. In one they briefly state that very successful results have attended the immersion of diseased potatoes in bog-water, which appears to arrest the progress of the distemper. The other report, which seems to be the last of the present series, is more comprehensive. We compress its principal points together In its present form the disease is certainly of modern origin. The original cause does not appear to have been well-established; but it seems to be connected with the cold, cloudy, ungenial weather, which has this year characterized the north of Europe; to which region, with North America, the distemper appears to be limited. Potatoes planted early in the season, or in dry elevated districts, are more healthy than those planted later. Presuming these conclusions to be right, there will be no cause for alarm as to the crop next year, except in the remote chance of an equally unfavorable season occurring. In providing seed for a future year, such potatoes as have resisted the tendency to decay during the winter may safely be used; though it would be better not to employ them unless it be necessary; and they should be rubbed with lime-dust. There are no satisfactory evidences in support of the prevalent opinion that the potato has arrived at a state of general debility, and that the crop will continue liable to disease like the present, until new varieties shall have been raised from true seed. Concurrent testimony points out the Irish "cup" variety as that which has suffered least from the attack. The replenishing of the diminished supply of potatoes by seeds formed in the flower is an operation only to be carried on successfully in a garden, and is unsuited to the small cultivator. The practice of autumn-planting is earnestly recommended, as offering additional advantages of security. The planting may be performed at any time before the end of January. The commissioners promise hereafter further reports on the more abtrusely scientific branches of the subject. The reports from the Continent are more favorable than they have been. It is now said that France, Greece, and Italy, are safe from the appearance of the disease; and though the other countries of Europe have suffered more or less from the cold and wet of the late season, there appears to be no ground for apprehension of a positive dearth in any country of the Continent. Among the suggestions of remedies, Father Mathew recommends the substitution of oats for potatoes "There are oats enough in Ireland to feed the whole population until the next harvest. If landlords allow their tenants to thrash their oats, postpone their demand for rent, and let distillation from grain be prohibited, all anxiety and fear lest there should be a famine will vanish. The distillers can manufacture rotten potatoes into brandy, and leave grain, the merciful gift of a good God, to be for the purpose designed by divine providence."Spectator. THE SPANISH MARRIAGE. ONE of the great aims of the king of the French, perhaps the aim towards which he has most labored, and to which he has sacrificed most, has been to ingratiate himself with some of the older or eastern courts of Europe. With this view, he has condescended and manoeuvred in a thousand ways, having been often ready, not perhaps to sacrifice to this hope the Anglo-French alliance, but certainly to curtail, weaken, and endanger it. If Louis Philippe was but half faithful to the Quadruple Alliance, and if he has set up Conservative parties of his own in the constitutional countries of the south where he has influence, this was done, in a great measure, to prove to the absolutist courts how truly monarchic the French court system was, and how able and zealous to combat and keep down popular exigences and parties. So high were the hopes of the French court in this respect at one time, that it dreamed even of intermarrying with the great courts. Its princes crossed the Rhine, and visited German capitals in search of spouses. They would have gone to St. Petersburg itself, had the czar held up a little finger of invitation. But during the whole fifteen years of his reign these efforts of Louis Philippe have utterly failed, and now the French princes, however numerous and active, never venture eastward of the Rhine. They traverse the ocean, wander from Brussels to Pampeluna, and leave their cards at Windsor; but even to Vienna or Berlin we never hear of their venturing. This is owing mainly to the indomitable will of the Emperor Nicholas, who keeps unchanged his distrust of France, and of the dynasty which the events of 1830 raised to its throne. However little the sympathy we may have with the czar and his abominable system of government, still we cannot but confess that we owe, in no small degree, the pacific conduct of France to the salutary caution inspired by the tacit hostility of Russia. This rivalry between France and Russia is still lively, as we may perceive from the assiduity with which the French government journals record Russian reverses in the Caucasus. There is evidently some new cause of enmity and opposition in addition to the old and standing one. This new cause is no other than the attempt of Louis Philippe to bring Spain and its young queen, recognized, into the circle of European sovereigns, whilst Russia as resolutely is determind to exclude her. The principal move of Louis Philippe was to propose a Neapolitan marriage, and thereby conciliate Austria, which is so connected with the Court of Naples, and has such power over it; but Austria will not take the bait, but insists on the rights of Don Carlos, or at least on the pretensions of his son to espouse the queen. His Holiness the Pope, who holds the soul of the penitent Christina in his hands by his power of absolution, declares for Carlos too; and Louis Philippe raps in vain at the door of the Neapolitan palace, begging that a young Bourbon be sent to espouse Isabella. The Court of Naples might have been wavering; but lo! the entire Court of St. Petersburg pours upon it, with all the splendor of Northern Imperialism, and French councils are of course exiled from Naples for the nonce. A well-informed Madrid paper assures its readers that Mr. Bulwer, as Lord Aberdeen's envoy, has forbid the banns between the Duke de Montpensier and the Infanta, younger sister of the queen, until such time as the latter shall be married and have offspring-a singular but not unwise piece of impertinence. The Infanta is an exceedingly pretty personage, and the Duke de Montpensier is said to be very anxious for the arrangement of the preliminaries. As these are no less than the marriage of the elder and royal sister, every effort is to be made for solving this latter enigma. But the presence of the Czar Nicholas in Sicily seems to render the Neapolitan match hopeless. The Prince of Lucca, another Bourbon, is affianced to the sister of the Duke of Bordeaux. So that nothing seems left for the "innocent Isabella," save a Cobourg or a son of Don Francisco. The latter has taken a step in public estimation, by snubbing and half insulting the marine minister, Armero, who went down to Cadiz to persuade him to sail to the Philippines. Prince Henry turned the high admiral, Armero, out of his ship, and bade him go himself considerably farther. A few more traits of the kind will make Prince Henrique a hero. Examiner, 8 Nov. AN EFFECT OF RAILWAYS.-The head of the passport office at Ostend, says the Times, has announced that in future, persons entering Belgium either by that route or by Antwerp, will not be required to produce passports. This remission is understood to have arisen from the difficulty of keeping up the old regulations, now that travelling by railway has come so much into use; and hence a further relaxation of it may be soon looked for. SIR Richard Vyvyan, M. P., has authorized the Times to state that the " Vestiges of Creation," the authorship of which has been attributed to so many persons, was not written by him. The further intimation that the honorable baronet is engaged in another work of a not dissimilar character we are still disposed to believe.-Falmouth Packet. THE BOURBONS. OBSERVANT people, even in the precincts of courts, have begun to discover that a dogmatic education, one which teaches to believe and to confide, not to reason, has a tendency to brutify a race and produce its degeneration. The question is an important one, since many eminent minds in our own days, struck with the danger of the national and individual mind being left to free ratiocination, have adopted in terror the contrary principle of authority, nay, would prefer seeking at the old shrine of Rome to going altogether without it. We have no intention of going into so wide a question, but merely that of remarking that the desired experiment has been more fully tried upon royal races than upon any other. It seems indisputable that all princes and princely families, devoted and confined to dogmatic education, that is, to be the unreasoning recipients of certain principles in religion and politics, have turned to idiotism, or to a state approaching it. This is exemplified to a most melancholy degree by the Bourbons of the south of Europe. Politicians of all courts and parts are anxiously engaged in the important matter of finding a husband for the young Queen of Spain. His majesty of the French is most anxious to preserve and perpetuate in their old posts and possessions the family of Bourbon, and he has accordingly set up the pretension that the hand of the Spanish queen shall be given to no other. Without exactly acquiescing in the pretension, the other courts reply: "A Bourbon, if you please, but not of your family, for we cannot admit, even in contingencies, the too close union of the crowns of the two kingdoms." Accordingly there has been a general review of all the young Bourbons. Nor have they been wanting in number. The race is prolific. The difficulty has been to find a presentable specimen ; for it seems that out of the score no one can be found with intellect enough to be entrusted with a share in the delicate task of founding a constitutional empire. In vain does the queen mother plead that brains, especially in husbands, are an incumbrance, and that the best monarchs have done without. She is told, in contradiction, that there are now crises in the life of every prince, which require intellect and manly qualities to get through with dignity at least, if not always with success. Louis Philippe himself admits this. The days are past in which a disciple of the monks could reign with unction, and go down to posterity with the name of the Desired or the Beloved. In the sifting of the Bourbon princes the least incapable have been put forward, and there are Prince Trapani of Naples, Prince Henry, son of the Infante, and young Carlos of exile. But Trapani and Carlos have both been reared in the “cellular system" of princely education, and, independent of the dangerous party attached to the latter, it is feared that neither prince would make a sufficiently respectable automaton. Henrique, duke of Seville, is of better promise, but the imbecility of his father and of his family in general descends to him in reputation, and the public have no hopes, and consequently no affections. Count Bresson, the French Envoy, who fills the post of the young queen's political duenna, is so dreadfully fearful and fidgety about the preservation of that rickety thing called French influence, that no candidate is French enough for him; so that, what between the nullity of the suitors, the selfish fears of the guardians, and the indifference of the public, Queen Isabella may rival our Elizabeth in every quality save that of glory. Independent of the marriage, however, it is said to be the intention of Louis Philippe to call an assembly of the Bourbon family, at least of such members of it as he has not proscribed, in order to lay before them the melancholy effects of "cellular education," which is more destructive to the perpetuation and intellectual vigor of royal races than intermarriages or the evil. He can contrast his own family with those princely ones of Madrid, Naples, and Lucca. He may contrast the princes of Prussia with those of Austria, and the freely educated princes of Austria with those not so. He can prove with ease that revolutions and the overthrow of monkery and Jesuit preceptors are as indispensable to the vitality and prosperity of royal races as of nations.-Examiner, Nov. 15. "So long a time having elapsed since her death, and the weather being extremely hot, the consul desired to have the burial take place immediately. A coffin (a rudely constructed box) had been prepared, and her ladyship had given directions to be buried in a vault in her garden. The Arab servants put her body in the box, nailed down the cover with stones in the absence of hammers, and LADY HESTER STANHOPE'S FUNERAL. with great noise carried the corpse to its lonely grave. By the aid of lanterns we threaded the To the Editors of the National Intelligencer: A letter giving an account of the burial of reached a large oblong arbor, covered with jasdensely shaded walks of her garden until we Lady Hester Stanhope, from the pen of a young mine, and surrounded with tall rose-bushes. In American clergyman, who performed her funeral the south end of this arbor she had many years ago ceremonies, appears to have escaped the notice of built a vault for the body of a young Frenchman, the many commentators upon the life and charac- for whom she had a great affection, and whose ter of that lady, whose singularities, nay, even father was in her service. Here she had comwhose misfortunes, seem to have afforded the manded her servants to bury her, and they had greater part of them matter for ridicule and sarcasm instead of pity. In a very different spirit bones of the boy, and placed them in a pile at the accordingly broken up the cover, gathered out the was the letter penned from which I purpose to head of the vault. Into one of these bones the sermake some extracts, thinking they may be accep- vant had thrust a lighted taper, dimly revealing table to many of your readers, who will not find a death's grimmest features. I read the solemn sersubject for mirth in the weaknesses which in-vice of the Church of England, and the body was creased upon her solitary old age and her singular placed in its narrow house, earth to earth, ashes position. These appear to have been treasured up to ashes.' The bones of the boy were gathered by her dismissed physician, to be used for purposes best known to himself, when she, the object of up, put into a basket, and deposited in one end of them, cannot hear or answer his calumnious flip- when our heavy task was done,' and we returned the vault. It was just two o'clock in the morning pancies. Iwith sad and solemn thoughts. Who could be secure in their converse with their "In the morning I accompanied the consul through the premises, while his dragoman took an inventory of the goods. We examined thirty-five dependants if the one that they trusted in their most unguarded moments, and in the presence of whom they indulged in the freest expression of their thoughts, was prepared to have them "writ-rooms, most of which she had built; and, besides ten down?" Many a one besides Dogberry would find himself "written down an ass," who has passed through life with a very different reputation. But to the letter, which was published in the "New York American" of the 18th Aug., 1840. The writer was invited by the British consul at Beyroot to accompany him to Lady Hester's late residence to perform her funeral obsequies. He says: * This filled with various kinds of lumber. There were these, there was a vast number of small closets no jewels nor any plate found—not even a watchbut there was the mare, mentioned by Lamartine, with the mysterious saddle on her back, and by her side the one of pure white. conformation of the back-bone. I remember once natural saddle, by the way, is no more than a malseeing the same thing in America. Poor beasts! who now will care for them and tend them as they "It was ten at night when we arrived. An den them; they are now old and tender, and quite have always been tended? No one has ever ridarmed sentinel rudely demanded who we were, useless. I felt more pity for them than for anyand immediately introduced us when his question thing I saw about the house. Perhaps this was We reached the owing to the absence of anything which could place where the body lay: it was an open court, awaken sorrow, and they had been the objects of between two rooms, and upou a low bench lay the their mistress' greatest solicitude. They stared at corpse, covered with a dark cloth, dipped in some the consul and myself, not having seen a stranger kind of spirit. She had evidently been sick a long for many years. The gardens were time, and had gone down to the grave in the very very beautiful, laid out with much taste, and had extreme of emaciation. Her mouth had been been kept in perfect order." suffered to fall open, and some of her poor servants had filled it with small scarlet flowers, which, at first sight, and seen by the dim light of a small taper, looked like blood, and sent a shiver through my nerves like an ague. had been answered. * * "What a group of dismal objects! There lay the wreck of beauty, wit, and learning, which had adorned and enlivened the family of Pitt, and shone in the Court of St. James. That group of half-clothed blacks, now her only female attendants! Those fine-looking Moslem Arabs had composed her household! Not one European, male or female, in her whole family! Not one Christian, native or foreign, I was told, was with her, in her last days! She must have suffered greatly; and where is the heart that would not have felt, and the eye that could have restrained tear of compassion? So closed the mortal career of the favorite niece and confidential friend of William Pitt, and the grand-daughter of the illustrious Chatham. Perhaps you will regard this communication as a but singularly-constituted lady. suitable close to your notice of this highly-gifted AN ENGLISHWOMAN. BARRAGE OF THE NILE.-By accounts from Alexangiven definite orders to the French engineer, Mougel, dria to the 9th instant, we learn that the viceroy has to begin the stupendous work of the barrage of the Nile, which will cost his highness at the lowest estimate 3,000,000 dollars. This undertaking, by draining the pacha's treasury, will put an end to all hopes of a railroad in the Desert between Cairo and Suez. |