SONNET.

Thou dost not know how he, the worshipper
Of his soul's idol from his earliest years,
Can draw a language from his hopes and fears,
And make a converse of his thoughts with her.
Thou dost not know how oft amid the storm,

Remembrance of thee hath been gladly woo'd,
And e'en when nature smiled in gentle mood
I have forsaken her, to catch thy form,
And lingering nightly by the desert shore,

With none to see me but the silent moon,

Have dreamed of thee in such delicious swoon,

So painfully pleasing, like a dream of yore,

That heaven, and earth, and moon, and the still sea,
Seem'd all conversing, with one voice, of thee.

• While these sheets are passing through the press, a translation has been announced, which we have not yet seen.

RECENT POLITICAL EVENTS.

DEAR ANTHONY,

London, June 17, 1834.

Let us look for a moment at the new men they have got, and let us Well, my friend, there has been laugh, if we can laugh, at that of which a change of ministry at last-"and the country ought to be so heartily such a change!" But no matter; ashamed. Rice, you must remember, the Reform" cabinet exists no longer, they had before, and, if I do not much and this thing cannot long endure, mistake, in a situation where he did at least I suppose it cannot, though them much more service than he will Heaven knows it is hard enough, be able to do as Secretary for the after the experience of the last Colonies: many a good clerk makes three years and a half, to say that a bad manager; the clever Secretary anything is positively too absurd to to the Treasury will, I suspect, be a totter on, under the name and sem- feeble, fussy cabinet minister. As for blance of a government of these king- the House of Commons, his measure doms. I think we were lately in that has been taken there long ago, and he sort of position in which it is said, will never bear more weight than he "you must be worse before you will has at present. It would be absurd to be better." Perhaps we are so still; talk of him for a moment as an equivabut we have, at all events, made an lent for Stanley in any respect; but be important step towards that worser the value of his services what they condition which is to be the precursor may, they are not now acquired-they of our amendment. I do not mean, in are only shifted from a more appropriimitation of the prevailing fashion, to ate to a less appropriate sphere of set about eulogizing these men who action. As for Rice himself, he is the have left the ministry, just as if their most delighted creature on earth, now doing so had wiped away all the folly that he has secured his seat for Camand error of which they have been bridge; and as he is unquestionably a justly accused when in the administra- clever fellow, and a good fellow too, tion, and of which they would be still though cursed with an unpleasant kind accused if they were still in the ad- of affectation and a love of displaying ministration, even by those who now as something fine and uncommon, that praise them. But while I regard the which every gentleman ought to know four ex-cabinet ministers as participa- as a matter of course, I am willing tors in pernicious acts of revolution, that he should enjoy the glory of being which Great Britain can never forget, a cabinet minister, but I wish he had and ought never to forgive till justice wiser people for colleagues to keep has been done upon the perpetrators of him in the right way. Lord Carlisle, them, it must be confessed that they, the new Privy Seal, they also had or at least three of them, were the most before, though he held no office. The respectable in talent, and by far the change from no office to a sinecure is most respectable in character, of the not much, except as to the pay; and whole cabinet. As for the Earl of that circumstance, however agreeable Ripon-the Fred. Robinson of "pros- to Lord Carlisle, has in it no very perity" notoriety, the Lord Goderich obvious advantage to the country. I of Canning manufacture, and the suspect that his lordship's fitness for au Goosy Goderich by popular accla- office where he has nothing to do, is mation-the less that is said about much more certain that his worthiness him the better. But Stanley, Gra- to receive a salary from the Treasury. ham, and the Duke of Richmond, The new First Lord of the Admiralty were men who, with all their faults, is no new accession of wisdom to the did some credit to their places, and the government. He has had all sorts of substitutes for them are "poor indeed." situations, in which no more ability

than that of receiving pay was requi-
site-his name appears, I know not
how often, in the pension list. He is
an undeniable blockhead-stiff, pom-
pous, and without an idea. His acces-
sion to the cabinet is mere nonsense.
Edward Ellice is an active, talking,
"knowing lad," as we say in Ireland,
whose character ought to have been a
complete bar to his admission into the
cabinet. His assistance the govern-
ment also had before, in the only way
in which he really can be of any use
to a government.
He has been a
jobber in other things besides politics,
and can bring nothing good, whatever
evil he may bring to the character of
the patched-up cabinet.

The new Master of the MintAbercromby-is the most important of the new cabinet ministers; and this shows how insignificant the rest must be; for Abercromby is nothing more than a cool, hard, shrewd Scotchman, and a bitter Whig; but bold and independent enough to carry his whiggism through, without doubling, and twisting, and shrinking, according to the general custom of his party. Abercromby always looks as if he had shaved with cold water, and swallowed a large lump of ice for his breakfast, which still lay cold and heavy upon his stomach-his brains may be supposed to be an agglomeration of iron wire, and his heart an ossification, with just enough of cavity to hold the black bitter substance which circulates through genuine sulky Whigs, instead of wholesome blood. Independently of his hard, remorseless, detructive principles in politics, he is unfit for a British minister. He may be a very good estate agent, or factor which he was, not very long ago, to his Grace of Devonshire-but the man has by no means the elevation, or the grasp of mind for a statesman, who has a share in guiding the affairs of the kingdom. But, such as he is, he can hardly be considered an accession to the government; for they made use of him before, nearly to the extent of which he was capable of being useful. Poulet Thomson's step from the Vice-Presidency to the Presidency of the Board of Trade, makes no differHe was a pernicious, pedantic coxcomb before, and he will be a pernicious, pedantic coxcomb still. So no

ence.

more, at present, about him. A junior Baring is transferred from a Lordship of the Treasury, to the Secretaryship of the Treasury, lately held by Spring Rice. I rather think the gentleman is quite inadequate to such a situation, which requires great attention, industry, and acuteness; but the truth is, that not much is known about this Baring. No doubt he will be able to sign his name to the accounts; and as to his efficiency in office, the Whigs will not mind that, unless the matter, by some chance, is forced upon them.

As for Lord Conyngham, Colonel Hay, and Captain Byng, who have, respectively, got the Post-Office, the Clerkship of the Ordnance, and a Lordship of the Treasury, what can one say of such trash, except to express wonder that a serious, thinking, business-like people, as the English are, should endure to have such persous as the responsible managers of important public affairs; and, what is more strange, should endure to pay them too. If such appointments as these be tolerable, I should be glad to know what things they were, under the ante and anti-reform system, which, we are assured, produced the storm of popular indignation that carried, as on the wings of the wind, the reform bill?

Such, then, are the "arrangements" which, after many painful throes and struggles-many impediments, doubts, and difficulties, have, at length, been effected; and the government appointments-principal and subordinate-are at length complete after the late breach. I need not tell you of the outpourings of contemptuous wrath-the almost universal blame and derision, which this patching up has met with. The storm raged so high, that I, at one time, suspected something more serious would come of it than the thundering, howling, and hissing of the newspapers, and the sneering and jeering in the genteel, and particularly devoted, as well as "reformed," House of Commons. But, for some days back, there has been a lull, and there seems to be some chance of its continuing, unless a threatened motion on the part of Lord Wicklow, should lead the Conservative majority in the Lords into decisive action on behalf of the church.

The debates in both Houses, in

which the ex-ministers made their pledge against the church, and leading explanations, were not less interesting to the attainment of what is called than such debates generally are. Mr. necessary information. There never Stanley's speech, if one could forget was a more offensive absurdity than some other speeches which the same this new commission of inquiry, reMr. Stanley has made, would excite specting church property, Protestantthe utmost admiration and gratitude. ism, Popery, education, performance He never was more eloquent, and of ecclesiastical duty, and I know not when one says this of Mr. Stanley, it what besides, which the government, follows that the speech must have to make the humbug the greater, have been indeed a great one. Undoubtedly stuffed into it. It is offensive, because the theme was an animating one to all it puts, or seems to put, all sorts of who feel as earnestly for the church religious belief or superstition on a as I would fain hope, notwithstanding similar footing, as if they were all of some misgivings, that Mr. Stanley equal authority or equal doubtfulness, does. Sir James Graham was much and one no more entitled to respect and more effective also, than he generally support than another. It is absurd was, while a minister. How absurd it because I, Terence O'Ruark, you, Anis of the people to talk here as they thony Poplar, and every other man that do about the cool audacity of the Irish, knows anything of Ireland, are perand so on, when they have such a fectly well aware that even if persons, gentleman as Mr. Ward to rise up, the best fitted for such an inquiry, and with an air of the most liberal (and such are not the persons named assurance imaginable, propose that the in the commission) were employed property of the Established Church in upon it, they could not come at results Ireland, shall be held applicable to the to be depended upon as accurate, purpose of the state. He would not without years of labour, and check for the world (he means just at present) upon check, to supply the defects of apply the same rule to the property of carelessness, and to guard against the the church in England; but in Ireland industry of misrepresentation. The the establishment, by a mind so purged commission, if it reports at all, will from prejudice as his, is seen to be report a curdle of conjectures or falsepreposterous. It is, in short, very hoods, and this will be made probably coolly assumed that nothing but un- the foundation of legislation! Such is enlightenment and bigotry, of the the effect of proceeding to make laws, darkest and densest description, could not to suit the requirements of a dream of upholding the church estab- people, but to appease the brawlings lishment in Ireland, and this, too, is of a faction. from a man brought up in Tory society, and since he came to man's estate abiding in Toryism, and consenting thereunto! There can be only one thing more disgusting than this, and that is, that ministers of the crown should consent to such principles as those avowed by Mr. Ward; and to fill up the measure of their shame, shrink from the parliamentary recognition of principles, which in fear and trembling for their places, they humbly allow to be just. There does not seem to be any reason for this miserable half-and-half proceeding, except that it caused delay in coming to that crisis which, when it does come, will probably shake them, and all such feeble men, out of political power, and also that it gave opportunity for a new commission, under pretence of at once affording a

In the House of Lords, upon the Earl of Wicklow's motion, for the production of this commission, Lord Grey approached so near to dignity in his declamation, and produced such an impression of sincerity by his earnestness, that I was disposed more to pity than condemn him, until I came to his frantic vows of allegiance to the cant term (for I know not what definite idea it is supposed to convey) the "spirit of the age." A more egregiously absurd, and grossly improper speech than this, was never made by any one at years of discretion, and having important duties confided to him. What! Shall a man who has lived seventy years-the Prime Minister of Great Britain, who ought to have clear principles of religious and political duty, fixed and moored in the depths of his conscience so fast,