have abandoned, and we wish, therefore, to put the nation upon its guard as far as possible against them.

The Whigs, since their change of system, have been incessantly bespattering that portion of the Ministry which is favourable to what is called Catholic emancipation, but more especially Mr Canning, with their panegyrics. Now Mr Canning-the same Mr Canning-was always, previously to the last two years, the especial object of Whig execration. We remember how eternally the Whig papers lampooned and vilified him-how eternally the Whig leaders belaboured him-how Tierney scoffed at his theatrical action and wicked sophistrieshow Burdett raved respecting his robberies of the public-how Hume dilated on his cruelty-and how Brougham scourged his mercenary treachery. We have not forgot what was said respecting his mission to Portugal, and the pensions granted to certain members of his family; we have not forgot the pamphlet, the author of which he in effect challenged, and the remarks which the Whigs made respecting that pamphlet and his conduct; and we have not forgot the scrape into which he drove poor Hume, with regard to the Times newspaper, and the scrape into which he drove poor Burdett, with regard to some asseverations delivered to the populace. No one member of the Ministry, if we except the late lamented Marquis of Londonderry, was so intensely hated, and so fearfully slandered by the Whigs, as Mr Canning. Well, it is now with the Whigs, Mr Canning, or no one:-" He has the rare fortune," says Sir James Mackintosh, to possess the confidence of his opponents, as well as the favour of his supporters." Here is Mr Canning, the Foreign Secretary, the ministerial leader of the House of Commons, actually declared to possess the confidence of the Opposition, of the Whigs, of the very men who, for the whole period of his public life, have said daily of him everything that could imply incapacity and want of principle!

The conduct of the Whigs is very different to the other portion of the Government. Mr Canning is little less than a god-Mr Robinson is amazingly clever and patriotic-the Marquis Wellesley cannot err-Mr Plunkett is a fine fellow-Mr C. Grant is vastly wise. Here the Whigs pause. Lord

Liverpool is neither fish nor flesh; but still he is a decent kind of person, and might be moulded into something in a certain state of things-Mr Peel is a queer sort of body; but he has friends, and it is best to be silent respecting him at present-Mr Goulburn is nobody; and the Lord Chancellor is Satan himself. Every one knows that this venerable nobleman, who will be regarded by posterity as one of the best and greatest of men that this country ever produced, occupies no prominent political office in the government, and abstains more than any other member of it from party conduct. If ever an individual in Parliament fastidiously adhered to fact and argument, and the naked merits of the matter before him, in his speeches, that individual has been Lord Eldon. It is notorious that his political influence flows almost altogether from his high character and commanding talents. Yet all the party malignity and ire that the Whigs can possibly muster are constantly directed against him. The Prime Minister must be spared, the Ministerial Leader must be eulogized, but the Lord Chancellor must be crushed. It is not the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer; it is the Lord Chancellor, whom the Opposition must oppose and drive from office. It has hitherto been the practice to ascribe every act of the Ministry to the Ministry as a body; or, at any rate, if such acts were ascribed more particularly to the leading Minister, he was held accountable for the unpopular as well as the popular ones: but now all that the Ministry does which pleases the Whigs is done by Mr Canning, and all that it does which vexes them is done by the Lord Chancellor. It is Lord Eldon who keeps the Catholics from power, who will not suffer the rabble republics of South America to be recognized, and who blows up the schemes of the Liberals as rapidly as they are fabricated; while Mr Canning does, or seeks to do, everything that the Whigs wish. Lord Eldon, it seems, in addition to his being the Chancellor, travels about from the Home Office to the Foreign Office, and from the Colonial Office to the Exchequer, and makes little boys of all his colleagues, the Premier included. Poor Carlile has been so widely misled by this, that, the other day, he actually addressed a number of his Republican

to the Lord Chancellor, in which he spoke to this exalted individual by the terms "Fellow," and " Thou," and protested that it was he who brought the late shower of prosecutions upon the blasphemy shop in Fleet Street. To Lord Eldon this is the brightest of glory-but what is it to Mr Canning? Now what is the cause of all this? The Whigs declare that Mr Canning has apostatized from his creed, and has become a Liberal; he protests that he has not. They assert that he has given a new direction to our foreign policy; he declares that he pursues the line which was chalked out by his predecessor; and he produces irrefragable proof of it in the shape of a state paper drawn up by that predecessor. Looking beyond the assertions, and counter-assertions, it seems to be pretty certain that Mr Canning is as far from Whiggism as he ever was. He has

stated in Parliament, that the war on the continent was between extreme opinions, of which we could support neither; and that the "constitutional system" of Spain was altogether unfit for a nation. This, we think, ought to be regarded as one memorable point of difference between him and his adulators. With regard to reform, church robbery, and the other leading points of Whig policy, his opinions remain unchanged. He has indeed complimented Wilson, and sat at table with Waithman, Favell, Hobhouse, Hume, &c.; but although we wish from our souls that he had not done this, still we think that, so far as it concerned himself, it amounted to nothing more than a sacrifice of personal dignity. Evidence is altogether against the alleged apostacy of Mr Canning.

The plain truth is, the Whigs are not quite so simple as to be duped by a few bows and soft phrases. They know that Mr Canning is now what he was when he was the most prominent object of their abuse; they love him as much now as they did when they lavished this abuse upon him, and they speak of him and to him as they do, because it constitutes their best means of pushing their own interests. They know that all ranks despise them at home, that they can be no longer aided by continental allies, that they do not possess among themselves what would form a Ministry, and that, as a separate party, they never can reach office. Their grand

object therefore is, to split the Ministry, that they may stick themselves into the tail of one of the fragments, and thereby mount to some of the subordinate offices of the government. Ministers are divided in opinion touching the Catholic question, and therefore the Whigs are eternally labouring to puff this question into one of the first rank, and to drive them to open conflict with each other respecting it. If only Lord Eldon's party and Mr Canning's party will quarrel, then the Whigs are sure either of be ing taken by the hand by those who remain in office, or of being reinforced by those who leave it. They take the part of Mr Canning, because on this question they agree with him, because he is the youngest and most accommodating man; and they dilate on his Liberalism, and worship him to conceal their wretched arts, and to intimate to him that they will abandon reform, turn Brougham and their less tractable members adrift, think as he may wish them to think, and coalesce with him whenever he will hold up his finger as a signal. Such is clearly their present object, and it is worthy of them: We pretend not to foretell the issue, but still we think that Mr Canning is too well acquainted with his own interest to suffer them to ruin him.

It cannot, however, be denied, that the Whigs have reaped some success from their change of tactics. Flattery is a most potent weapon, and it has not been applied to Mr Canning's sides altogether in vain. Bating his notice of the Radical drabs, we do not think that it has made him do what he ought not to have done; but we fear that it has made him leave unsaid much that he ought to have said, and this is no light matter. The strife which has in late years convulsed the world, has raged between the friends and enemies of the principles and feelings which hold society together-to determine whether these should or should not be destroyed--and we think it was the highest duty of the ministers to occupy the first place among the former. The Whigs have never ceased to attack these principles and feelings, even when they have poured their panegyrics the most thickly upon Mr Canning, and he has seemed to be so far overcome by their smiles and cant, as to be unable to find in his heart to

contradict them. The consequence has been, that from his silence, the House of Commons, in the last two sessions, has appeared to sanction opinions directly levelled against public spirit, public honesty, and the best interests of the empire.

Our readers cannot have forgotten what took place in Parliament in the session of 1823. Nothing was to be heard but reprobation of the conduct of France, and praise of the Spanish Revolutionists; the Whigs represented the latter to be the best of beings, and the little that fell from the Ministers seemed to countenance it. Of course, the Ministerial as well as Opposition prints took their cue from this, and almost all the guides of public opinion laboured to make us the enthusiastic friends of these Revolutionists. Now, the naked facts of the matter were these:-These persons were the brothers of our Radicals in all things. We had just, with no little difficulty, put down our own Revolutionists, and we were advised to sympathize with and assist those of another country, It was in effect proclaiming that the self-same opinions were true abroad and false at home-that the self-same actions were laudable in other countries, and crimes in this-and that the Liberals ought to be cherished on the continent, and destroyed in Great Britain. It was even doing worse than this. It was virtually making a surrender of Toryism, encouraging our Liberals to redouble their exertions, and notifying to the sound part of the community that they ought to war no longer against "liberal opinions."

This was not only in the highest degree preposterous, but it was calculated to be in the highest degree mischievous. Mr Canning, as the ministerial leader of the House of Commons, committed a capital error in not declaring, that while he condemned the conduct of France, he equally condemned the conduct and principles of

the Spanish rulers. He ought to have stated that this country never could support such a system as had been established in Spain, and that it never could regard the principles which had revolutionized that unhappy nation with anything but abhorrence. The neutrality for which we had declared, and our interests throughout, demanded this. He has since said, that he was not then called upon for such a declaration, but we nevertheless think that he was. If he had made it, he would have proved that the assertions of the Whigs respecting his own change of opinions were false, he would have prevented the House of Commons from appearing to sanction Jacobin principles, and he would have kept the ministerial prints from that mischievous course which they are now pursuing.

A still more wanton disregard for the conservation of sound principles and feelings, was manifested by Parliament during the last session. According to the papers, Mr Canning, in his official character, complimented Wilson in the House of Commons, and to render this the more unaccountable, he did it in a speech which charged the same Wilson with having violated the spirit of the laws, and with having exerted himself to the utmost, and not wholly without effect, to involve this country in a war with France. Mr Lyttleton was represented to say, that Wilson was an honour to his country, and it was asserted that the whole House joined in the panegyrics. Now, the best that can be said of Wilson, is, that he possesses as much personal bravery, as is possessed by almost every man in Great Britain, while his dark side might, we think, strike the most unscrupulous eulogist in the world speechless. We remember that he was the chairman of a public meeting in the very height of the Queen-fever, at which it was lamented that Spain had got the start

of us in revolution, and hoped that we should speedily follow her example; we remember that he assisted our Revolutionists to the utmost, so long as they would keep the field, and that he afterwards assisted in the same manner those of other nations ;-we remember his feats at the Queen's meetings, and at her funeral;-and we remember that he was expelled the British army. Now, where is the setoff against all this? Where is the history of his achievements-where are the records of his national services-and where, amidst his multifarious books and speeches, are the proofs that his talents rise even to mediocrity? If these can nowhere be found, where, at any rate, is the evidence that he has become a peaceable and well-affected member of society? If this be likewise lacking, on what ground has he been panegyrised in Parliament?

Again, Sir J. Mackintosh passes a flaming eulogium on Lord Cochrane, and in the most seductive manner invites some Minister of the Crown-Mr Canning, of course-to advise the restoration of his commission in the navy, and the House is reported to have received this even with cheers! Lord Cochrane is unquestionably a brave man, but what is he more? We recollect that it was his eternal practice at mob meetings, to solemnly pledge his honour, that he would in Parliament prove different members of the government to have committed the most heinous crimes, and that he never redeemed, or attempted to redeem, his pledge. We recollect the groundless abuse which he cast upon his superior officers. We recollect his abominable and infamous speeches to the populace. We recollect that he was tried by a jury for a scandalous fraud-for a fraud, the object of which was to enrich himself by the ruin of thousands of poor families-and that he was convicted on the clearest evidence. We recollect that he swore by his honour, and everything else, that he was innocent, although no man ever to this day doubted that he was guilty. We recollect, that putting his conviction out of sight, he was one of the most unprincipled demagogues that ever the country was cursed with. And we cannot be ignorant, that while he has been in South America, he has generally been acting the part of a buccaneer-that he has been as

often the master as the servant of those who hired him-that on one day he plundered every flag he durst touch, and on the next quarrelled with his employers, and ran away from his duty, that he might pocket the chief portion of the booty-and that his conduct throughout has proved that his ruling motive has been lucre. Against this appalling history nothing -nothing can be thrown into the scale, save personal bravery! Yet this is the man whose eulogy the superficial and infirm understanding of Sir J. Mackintosh has chaunted, and whose eulogy the House of Commons is reported to have heard with approbation.

We will here say, and we challenge contradiction, that these two men would never have been heard of in Parliament, if they had not mingled in the broils of faction, and been Radical leaders;-that if their swords had been employed a thousand times more than they have been, and they had been covered with wounds received in the battles of their country; still, if they had in the late perilous times exerted themselves as strenuously in favour of the constitution, the laws, social order, and public peace, as they exerted themselves against them, they would only have been named in Parliament to have been made the objects of Whig abuse. We will say further, that if these inen had never violated the laws of their country and of the world, and had never uttered their sickening puff and swagger respecting themselves, they would never, in spite of their services to Radicalism, have received any Parliamentary notice whatever.

We will now ask, not factions, not the Whig leaders, nor the Ministerial leaders, but that portion of our countrymen who think and act for themselves on public matters-1. Is it meritorious for individuals to violate the laws of their country and of other nations?-2. Do military and civil punishments confer character ?-3. Do men possess a particle of honour, who say what is untrue to delude the ignorant, and who pledge their honour to prove what they never can prove?

4. Is it decent and proper for our tremendous mass of military and naval officers, to be virtually told that the way to obtain honourable distinction, is to trample upon the laws, to

plunge into the filth of factious politics, and to become leaders of the rabble, against all that is dear to the country? 5. Will it produce public good, for the nation to be informed that the men who have been degraded and punished, and who owe their wretched notoriety to their enmity to our best institutions, and their efforts to produce public convulsion, are alike honourable and deserving? If the answers be-No! what are we to think of the parliamentary praise which has been bestowed on Mr Wilson and Lord Cochrane?

But they

We do not say this for the sake of doing disservice to these persons; if the matter affected their personal interests alone, Mr Canning and Sir J. Mackintosh might splice them together, and make a two-headed fourlegged king of them, and it would excite in us only merriment. are used as the instruments for destroying the foundations of society, and therefore it is our duty to disable them as far as we can for being put to such use any longer. This duty nothing shall prevent us from discharging. The eulogies which have been heaped upon these mountebanks, are directly levelled against all the distinctions between honour and dishonour, between guilt and innocence, between merit and demerit; and they are calculated to teach the community to follow dishonour, guilt, and demerit alone. So long as our rulers hold such persons up to public admiration, it will be a mockery in them to define crime, to make laws, and to call upon the people to be innocent, peaceable, and well-affected.

After having thus acted towards Mr Wilson and Lord Cochrane, how did the House of Commons act towards Lord Eldon? Here is a man who possesses the most rare talents and acquirements, who combines these with the most rare qualities of conduct, and who has employed the whole in the most beneficial manner possible for his country, for the longest period that human life will admit of. Compare him with such people as Brougham and Mackintosh-compare his views, principles, and life, with theirs, and then his gigantic powers, his splendid virtues, and his invaluable services, will be correctly judged of. Independently of these, his conduct throughout has been so thoroughly

English-so straight-forward, artless, steady, and courageous, that no one could refrain from revering him whose heart was an English one. He has ever scorned factious deeds-he has ever disdained to court popularity-he has ever proved to every one that he heard nothing but his conscience, and saw nothing but his country. If his colleagues were dismayed by perils, he was the hero to re-nerve them-if they were seduced by interest, he was the patriot to bring them back to their duty-if they abandoned him, he fought the good fight without them and triumphed. Whatever others may have done, Lord Eldon has never compromised his friends-Lord Eldon has never conciliated away his creed-Lord Eldon has never concealed his sentiments, to escape sarcasm and slander -Lord Eldon has never for a moment deviated from that glorious path, which can only be trod by the best and the greatest. Against this illustrious individual, charges were made, which, no matter how it was denied, were evidently meant to destroy his character for both ability and integrity, to cover him with parliamentary censure, and to drive him in disgrace from office. These charges notoriously originated in the most unworthy motives, and they were only supported by the assertions of those who brought them, and which were proved to be monstrously untrue. It might have been expected that the members to a man would have started from their seats in indignation, to defend a public servant like Lord Eldon, and that they would have spurned from them charges, thus made and thus supported, by acclamation. But no! the House of Commons, which, according to the papers, heard Wilson's nauseous boasting with delight, and cheered the proposition for replacing Lord Cochrane in the navy, actually divided on the question, whether the Lord Chancellor should or should not be visited with parliamentary condemnation unheard-whether he should or should not without trial have his fame blasted, and be covered with ignominy!

These matters we conceive to be of the very highest public import. Only let our rulers convince the nation that such men as Wilson and Lord Cochrane are spotless and meritorious people; and that such as Lord Eldon are the contrary; and they need do no