80

REGINA'S MAIDS OF HONOUR.

LIST THE FIRST.

Ir is just a year ago, since we gave a jolly row of our friends whose sex is male, seated at a table round; where, o'er claret, punch, or ale, or what liquor could be found, they, with song, or chaunt, or tale, made the jocund night resound. Now, as William Wordsworth says, now another day has come (you'll find the line among his lays) of purer thought and fairer doom; and behold a company, every one a lovely she, very busy taking tea, or coffee, as the chance may be.

He who from the imperial lord of Rome derives his haughty name, or else the foe of Julius' fame may the title high afford, Cæsar or Pompey, careful black, one of Afric's injured line, standing behind a lady's back, offers, not the cups of wine, but the cups, as Cowper sings, which cheer and not inebriate, and don't leave behind the stings which gentlemen who sit up late often find the morning brings to parched tongue and aching pate.

What are they doing? what they should; with volant tongue and chatty cheer, welcoming in, by prattle good, or witty phrase, or comment shrewd, the opening of the gay new year. Mrs. Hall, so fair and fine, bids her brilliant eyes to glow,-eyes the brightest of the nine would be but too proud to shew. Outlaw he, and Buccaneer, who'd refuse to worship here. And next, the mistress of the shell (not of lobster, but the lyre), see the lovely L. E. L. talks with tongue that will not tire. True, she turns away her face, out of pity to us men; but the swan-like neck we trace, and the figure full of grace, and the mignon hand whose pen wrote the Golden Violet, and the Lit'rary Gazette, and Francesca's mournful story. (Isn't she painted con amore?) Who is next? Miladi dear. Glad are we to see you here. Naughty fellows, we must plead, that with voice of angry organ once or twice we did, indeed, speak not civilly of Morgan; but we must retract, repent, promise better to behave. She, we are certain, will consent all our former feuds to wave; and, as we know she hates O'Connell, who calls her now a blockhead old, we shall say that in O'Donnell, and in other tales she told, there is many a page of fun-many a bit for hearty laughing, some to shed a tear upon,- some to relish while we are quaffing; and that she can then, good Miladi, for use the mawleys she has shewn upon the Crawleys. Prate away, -gossip, gossip, bore and bore,-all for him who to the shady grave has gone years a score, for the sake of old Macowen, and his song of Modereen Roo,- for your father's sake we are going never more to bother you.

Full the face that flashes near her; can we draw away our gaze? Vision nobler, brighter, dearer, did ne'er on human eyeball blaze. Front sublime and orb of splendour, glance that every thought can speak; feeling proud, or pathos tender, the lid to wet, to burn the cheek; or, my halting rhyme to shorten, can't I say 'tis Mrs. Norton? Heiress of a race to whom genius his constant boon has given, through long descended lines to bloom in wit of earth or strains of heaven. Ŏ! if thy Wandering Jew had seen those sunny eyes, those locks of jet, how vain, how trifling would have been the agony of fond regret which in thy strains he is made to feel for the creations of thy brain,- those wounds thou say'st he lived to heal,-thee lost, he ne'er had loved again! O, gorgeous Countess! gayer notes for all that's charming, sweet, and smiling, for her whose pleasant tales our throats are ever of fresh laughs beguiling. Say, shall we call thee bright and fair, enchanting, winning; but, oh, far hence such praise as ours; what need she care for aught beyond Sir Thomas Lawrence. Go, try to read, although his quill is too mean and dull what she inspired even in so great a sumph as Willis; and if that Yankee boy admired, who can a Christian person blame, if he, all Countess-smit, pretends that, if she lets him near the flame of her warm glance he'd think it shame that, like her book, she and he should look as nothing nearer than Two friends.

Our muse then, in a hurry, passes the pretty ladies by the glasses, and comes to where Miss Porter (Jane) is her sweet cup of coffee stirring, and in a soft and easy very bad strain of Mrs. Skinner's parties purring. Miss Martineau, with serious brow, beside the author fair of Thaddeus, is meditating, grimly, how she can prevent the use that people have in this sad earth of putting things into confusion, by giving certain matters birth, in spite of theories Malthusian. And last, the jolliest of them all, soft-seated on a well-filled bustle, her coffee sips, by Mrs. Hall — dear, darling Mitford (Mary Russell). Long may she live with graphic touch (though Croquis paints her here left-handed) our English scenes in pencillings Dutch, as neat as ever Douw commanded, in all their easy, quiet beauty-their modest forms, or grave, or gay, their homely cares, their honest duty, with heart all English to display.

And now that all around the table we thus have taken our full career, we drink the Ladies (while we are able) in the first bumper of the year. Long may they íbaix final home in Heaven! We wish them joy

A FEW WORDS MORE TO THE CONSERVATIVES.

Ar the close of the first year's contest in the registration courts, it is both natural and necessary that we should pause for a while, to survey the past, and to fix in our minds such lessons as that past is calculated to give to us. We have called it "the first year's contest;" and such, in truth, it is. In 1832, a mixture of disgust and despair kept the Conservative party from thinking or caring at all about either registration or revising barristers. In 1833 and 1834, no dissolution or change of ministry was looked for; and that listlessness which has often brought defeat upon their banners, still prevailed. But in the present year, vast was the change. Convinced, by the trial of the last spring, that all hope was not entirely lost, as they had previously feared, and summoned to the attack by the voice of their natural leader, the Conservatives of England thronged to the appointed field, and nobly regained the ground which their former inactivity had yielded. The best proof of this, and the best tribute to their exertions, is found in the public declarations of their bitterest foes.

On the 20th of June, 1835, the campaign opened; and on the 1st of November it closed. On the first of these days the registration for the year 1835-6 commenced, and on the last it was completed. Let us trace the altered tone of the Radical party, as these months successively elapsed, and their fate was, slowly but surely, ascertained.

They began with confidence, nay, with audacity. The Spectator--a weekly publication, which, though nobody else reads it (its weekly sale is shewn by the Stamp Office returns to be about 900,) is still, for some reason best known to themselves, patronized by the Central Reform Association put forth, on the 21st of June, the following valorous defiance :·

:

lack of diligence or exertion on the part of the Liberal leaders to counteract their efforts. We have no doubt, that any means which shall ensure a complete registration of qualified persons will give the Liberals a triumphant majority in the House of Commons."

Such were the "brave words" in which the Radicals delighted, in June and July. In August and September, as the game went on, there was less said, but a greater seriousness and moderation was visible in their deportment. In October the result began to be known, and long and woeful were the visages which retired from the revising barristers' courts to the meetings of the Central Reform Association. The very same Spectator, which in June had dared us to the conflict, now is compelled to admit, that

"The necessity of continued exertion is as clear now as ever it was. The enemy has not been vanquished, only pushed back."

No, the enemy quished," nor has he even been "pushed back;" for, had he been, as you pretend, pushed back, that very pushing back would have amounted to a vanquishing. The two parties being, in January last, as the English polls shewed, very nearly balanced, it followed of necessity, that whichever party could "push the other back," on this registration, would, in so doing, "vanquish them." But the Radicals have not vanquished us in the late contest, because they have not pushed us back.

"has not been van

In the same tone was couched the general circular of the Central Reform Association, dated November 2.

Putting the best face on the matter that was possible, it declared, that

"The zeal and activity of Reformers, under the guidance of district and local associations, has again produced a great change in the registered constituences of the country, and upon the present registration has secured to the cause of Reform a very large accession of strength throughout the kingdom.

The efforts of Reformers must not be discontinued; the advantage now gained may be increased, and strength may still be added to the Liberal interest; and the registration for another year will then shew, beyond a doubt, that there is no hope for Toryism."

Here again we find an open, though doubtless a most unwilling confession, that the victory was not with the Radicals, and that it must be left to another year to crush the hopes of Toryism. As to the boast of the "very great accession of strength" which the Reformers have gained, we admit the fact; but then we beg to add (what this circular takes care to say nothing about), that the Conservatives have gained a still greater!

But the clearest and most direct evidence that the Radicals knew themselves to be beaten was yet to follow. Brooding over their defeat for another week or two, and losing, by degrees, all hopes that "another year" would prove more auspicious than that which had past, they began, by degrees, to discover, and to announce the peremptory and urgent necessity of another If this be not the Reform Bill. plainest and clearest confession of defeat, and of all but despair, then language has lost its use.

On the 27th of November, the Spectator puts forth the following

:

"There will be no lack of important subjects to occupy the attention of parliament in its next session; but we do not hesitate to say, that the amendment of the Reform-bill itself should take precedence of every other.

We observe,

that, in a late address of the Reform Association, hopes are held out, that, at the next registration, the superiority of the Liberals will be fairly established; but, when we reflect on the sacrifice of time, labour, and money, which it has cost to fight our adversaries in the registration courts which have just closed, &c. &c. we are led to doubt whether the greatest exertions will counteract all these advantages on the Tory side."

Now, we are quite as ready as our antagonists to admit the manifold imperfections of the Reform Bill; and we would beg to remind them, that if they had paid but half the attention which they deserved to the suggestions of Sir Edward Sugden, Mr. Croker, and other Conservative members, when the House of Commons was in committee on that bill, most of these absurdities and blunders would have

been avoided. On the present occa-
sion, however, we beg to ask these
gentlemen, how it is that the Reform-
bill has been working on for three full
years without their having discovered
or remedied these manifold imperfec-
tions? And, above all, we would beg
to inquire how it happens that all these
important amendments have only oc-
curred to them just when their antago-
nists had inflicted on them a most de-
cisive defeat? Three successive years
had passed, and every imaginable
question and difficulty had arisen, and
it is only now, when a serious contest
has taken place, in which contest,
however, the law is at least as good
for them as for their antagonist,-it is
only now that they found out that the
first and most pressing want is for
a new Reform Bill

Perhaps, however, Mr. Roebuck,
our future hope, the Prime Minister,
or at least Chancellor of the Exchequer
of Queen Victoria,* may enlighten us
in this matter.

In the last Number of his "twopenny trash" he indulges us with the following view:

"Is the situation of the Tories at this moment worse or better than before the last attempt made by the Duke of Wellington to reinstate the Tories? I should answer, better. It is true the Municipal Reform Bill has been passed. But that would have been passed even had that attempt not been made, and probably a far more efficient measure would have been attained by aid of the last House of Commons. What would the Tories lose Nothing. The by another attempt? Whigs would be harassed, their power would infallibly be diminished by another dissolution, and the chances of Tory success are by no means contemptible. Look at the present House of Commons. The Chronicle says that it will not insist upon the fact of the House of Commons being hostile to the Tories. It is wise in thus abstaining, for I do not believe that the House of Commons is so hostile.

"As the House is now composed, if Sir Robert Peel could place himself in his position of last February, he would have a majority, in place of being in a minority, of nine. The ministerial party lost by the elections-they lost by the

This rising hope of England keeps up, through a relative, a correspondence with Canada, much of which correspondence appears from time to time in a Canadian paper. In one of these letters we read the following bright anticipation:Depend upon it, when Victoria comes to the throne, O'Connell, Hume, abo ductinies at Fueland."