DOMESTIC POLITICS. IT IS A PURPOSED THING, AND GROWS BY PLOT, THE turbulence and obtrusive disloyalty which had swelled with the progress of the Queen's trial have subsided, and the tide has turned. The impulse of vehement faction will always make some impression on the vast and fluctuating expanse of the public mind, but its mightier movements are obedient to laws from no temporary authority; and it is never stirred in its mass, but by an influence beyond the sphere of our low, intemperate, human passions. The character of the British nation is tardiness to pronounce judgment; the habits of jurisprudence have been familiar to the country, till they have become a part of its nature; and they have infixed that reluctance to hasty decisions, and that general propensity to the collection and weighing of evidence, which leaves, for the time, so easy a triumph to daring imposture. But this irresolution, which leaves the national mind powerless for the moment, has a noble compensation in the righteous and solemn judgment that is sure to follow-and the public conviction comes to the punishment of this bustling hypocrisy with a strength which intrigue has never been able to withstand. This result must have at length arrived, from the general character of the Queen's defence, and the national eye must have turned with disgust on the petty artifice and flagitious indecency of her abettors. But this result has been hastened by an act of wanton effrontery,-the Queen's visit to St Paul's. We exclude that unfortunate woman from the chief share of the censure. She comes into these pages only as the puppet of faction. Let her crime be between her conscience and that tribunal before which the purest may well humble themselves. But as the Queen of England, giving, however ignorantly, some shadow of royal authority to the proceedings, that, to all other eyes, have for their object the overthrow of the constitution, we must look to the waving of her Coriolanus. banner, not as the sport of a fickle and feeble wantoning, but as the direct signal around which the evil of the land is to be congregated; not to see it mocking the air in idle state, but leading wild, rude, revengeful beggars to the consummation of their labours. The junction of the Queen's cause with that of the radicals, makes both the fitter objects for administrative vigilance. Radicalism is subversion, total excision and overthrow,-the substitution, not of one order of polity for another, but an utter destruction of the present state of things in all their shapes of established and ancient use, to make way for desolation, or for the desperate experiment of ignorance and passion, inflamed by obsolete grudges and new impunity. With these reformers, there is no gradual corrective of public suffering. These new doctors of the body politic have no faith in alteratives; the patient must at once take up his bed and walk, or be flung into the grave. The processes of nature are too slow for the rapid intelligence of revolution. Their harvest must be raised from a soil which has never been polluted by the ignorant husbandry of past generations. They will not dip their plough into the clay, unless it has been cleared by a general deluge. The cause which connected itself with those missionaries of public havoc, the propaganda of the downfall of Kings and Priests, at once stamped itself guilty. Innocence rests on the faith of the Law; Guilt takes refuge among the mob. The Queen has done much to establish the opinion of her judges by her adoption of this common subterfuge of crime. But radicalisim has yet gained nothing by opening its sanctuary to the royal fugitive. With what rites it may have received her, what mysterious voices of speedy retribution on her accusers may have been uttered from the shrine, what grim and furious festivity crowned the reception of the illustrious convert, remains to be told-perhaps to form the future revelation of the dungeon and the scaffold. But Radicalism is too wise in its generation, to give its help without an equivalent. It has nothing of the weakness of benevolence in its protection, it makes no Samaritan journeys to find out the perishing and wounded by the wayside. It drives a solid, worldly bargain, with a due estimate of the profit and loss on its charity, and volunteers its purse and its dagger only where it is secured upon the mortgage of opulence or power; and the bond will be exacted. The Queen's patronage is already contemplated as part and parcel of the estate of faction. What new honour is to reinforce the decayed glories of Sir Robert Wilson's Star! what sinecure is to lay the unction to Alderman Wood's finances; by what well fed and festive occupation in the Royal Kitchen, the member for Coventry is to resume the abdicated purple of his countenance, all this is to be measured by the liberality that showered orders on a footman, and installed his beggary in the Barona. But, we may be assured, that from this treasury, the dry and withered resources of Radicalism will be refreshed, and that, with whatever blushing reluctance, the haters of Kings will be converted into pensioners on the Royal Bounty Yet all this prospective fruition is not without its present balance. The triumphs at Brandenburgh house have bred jealous ies. The civic manners of the patriotic alderman, brought out by wine and exhilaration, have been contrasted with those of men who, in other days, were companions for the honourable. Royalty is, after all, aristocratic, and the tastes which seem enamoured of a lacquey, in the languid airs of the Milanese, are not to be always relied on in our less amatory climate, for equal condescension, even to a FEU Lord Maire de Londres." Sir Robert Wilson's graces have, for some time, been in the ascendant, and even Peter Moore has not sighed without a smile. The alderman retired under pretence of ill health, like a disbanded minister, to his estates. But let Sir Robert tremble, for Bergami has suddenly ordered post-horses from Paris! "Am I not Egypt-what if I have lov'd? 66 Seen Cæsar kneel to me? Come, Antony! down. The lower agitators, who were not admitted into those arcana epularum, beThe smiles of gan to be offended. royalty are relaxing by their very nature; and while the feast went on, the vigour of riot was obviously melting The rabble agents dreaded another Capua in Brandenburgh house, and to silence the growing discontent, and marshal their forces once more, a field-day was ordered under the name of a procession to St Paul's. This of view, for it showed to the doubters, measure had its advantage in one point that their leaders were still ready to cry, "to the field," and that there was no defiance which they were not prepared to throw down to public decency. But in point of drawing over partizanship from the more respectable orders, all was failure, of England are unwisely attempted by and worse than failure. The people tiousness to their religious indifference. those who reason from their civil capNo demagogue has ever succeeded by adding the insult of religion to the insult of the laws. Fanaticism has done much, but atheism is not yet a passport to the errors even of the mob. sion to the metropolitan church was England is not France. This procesfelt to be a religious offence, and it excited great and general alienation. The belief of the citizens, and of all above the mere refuse of the streets, defence by her counsel. Placards and was against the validity of the Queen's addresses were their public language, and these of course both testify of inthe phrase which owes its origin to the nocence, and her "unsunned snow," protecting alderman, and is so happily characteristic of his eloquence. But their talk in the "market-places and greetings of men," was a perpetual excursion to Brandenburgh House was ridicule of her claims to purity. The a drive to the country, heightened by the glory of driving with four horsesthe huzzas of the populace through whom they filed, and the consummating indulgence of passing through the drawing-room of a Queen's villa and What tailors' apprentice, or sempstress, receiving the homages of a Queen.— or menial of any description, could resist this on a scruple of conscience? On the same principle, Messalina would ness in which their forefathers lived."—An swer to Liecester Females. "The Hierarchy made themselves inof the establishment to motives of secular strumental in sacrificing the charitableness interest or personal malevolence.”—Answer to St Botolph's. "The Members of the Hierarchy must have forgotten it to be their duty not to prostrate themselves at the feet of any temporal master, in questions in which con. science is concerned."—Answer to Clerken well. have had half the metropolis to shout after her chariot-wheels. But here was no country excursion, no exhilaration by the indulgences of the way side, no address, and acclamation, and firing of guns, and pantomime of mock royalty, but a hazardous and repulsive adventure to the house of prayer. In this the populace found but little excitement and no jest, and the rational, and religious, and loyal, a source of shame, regret, and alarm. From that moment inseparable disgust took possession of the majority. Something may be humanly forgiven even to guilt struggling to save itself by whatever desperate and frantic asseveration. The Queen's protest against the vote of the Peers on the third reading was a dreadful profanation in the eyes of those who had not been able to convince themselves of her innocence. But it might have been the outrage of passions, worked up to their height-it was like the blind and reckless grasp of the drowning, that will seize what it can, with-swer to Leicester Females. out distinction or respect. But the visit to St Paul's seemed wilful, gratuitous, audacious ;-if the Queen was innocent, a measure unsuitable to her modesty yet uncleared; if guilty, a flagitious profanation. bit of making Religion the pretext of their "Persons who have long been in the hatyranny, or the veil of their selfishness."— Answer to Liecester Females. But the individual's guilt or purity is comparatively unimportant as a public interest. The view in which she has a right to attract public vigilance, is as the rallying point of a routed faction. Her movements, trifling as they may be in themselves, are of weight as the indications of this restless malignity. From the flittings of the mother bee we ascertain the swarming of the hive. It was not forgotten on this melancholy occassion, with what sentiments the Queen regarded the church and clergy of England. If the evidence lied, that declared her to have abandoned all religious worship in her household in Italy, and to have attended the Catholic chapels as a sacrifice to the religion of Bergami, there could be no contradiction of her sentiments in such rescripts as these: "Calm wisdom teaches me that I ought never to give my sanction to the narrow views of any sect."-Answer to Lewis. "I am not the narrow-minded advocate of any sect."-Answer to Halifax. "Churchmen are usually more remarkable, even than Statesmen, for being behind the Light of the Age. They adhere pertinaciously to ancient forms. They are unwilling to pass beyond that boundary of darkVOL. VIII. "The temporal Peers, sanctified by the presence of united Bishops and Archbishops, are endeavouring to calculate the chances of adultery.”—Answer to Marylebone. "The religion and morals of a people are not at all dependent on the ceremonial of an expensive establishment."—Answer to Montrose. regard this alteration with any complacen"There is only one view in which I can cy, and that is, as the first step in the good work of ecclesiastical reformation.”—An "Churchmen would do well, ere it be another reformation that is rising upon the too late, to open their eyes upon the Sun of world."-Ibid. "The vicinity of a Cathedral is not always that kind of atmosphere that is most favourable to the growth of patriotic independence, or of high-minded generosity." Answer to Parishes of St Maurice and Winchester. The procession at length took place, after a week of ostentatious negotiation with Common Council-men and City Agitators, for the obvious purpose of blowing a trumpet to the loose and idle of the metropolis. A pompous programme of this royal progress was fixed up in the streets for some days before, and every art familiar to the Woods and Wilsons of this world was practised with minute diligence. But each "graced actor" in this drama of the "Mobbed Queen," had his appropriate part. Alderman Wood, illustrious for conduct and council within Temple-Bar, undertook to manoeuvre the civic patriots. Sir Robert Wilson, all military, adopted the command of what was, for effect, first called a Guard of Honour! but afterwards, through prudent caution, of a cavalcade. The Benefit Societies, screened under the softer appellation a body formidable from their numbers, and still more from the compact organization and rapid correspondence, which make them among the first objects of radicalism to seduce, were or 2 T dered out, and the streets were to be lined from Hyde Park Corner to St Pauls, by the various addressers, with all" the pomp of war"-flags, bands, and badges. But the madness was at an end-the whole exhibition failed. Out of perhaps fifty thousand, who in the extravagance of the time had carried up addresses, not five hundred obeyed the summons of "the general." The cavalcade counted perhaps as many more, and consisted of a motely mixture of inn-keepers, cityapprentices, and petty farmers. No person of any consideration joined this parody of a royal progress. Nothing could be more threadbare than this mounted majesty of the mob. Sir R. Wilson acted as Field-Marshal of those "Beggars on Horseback." But the streets were crowded with the gazers, who came attracted by curiosity, and with the pickpockets, who came to plunder the curious. It is one of the peculiar distinctions of the Queen, that she never moves unescorted by the spontaneous activity of this alert body of her subjects.16 Magnâ latronum comitante catervâ." Where the carcases are, there will the eagles be gathered together. Her triumph infuses itself into the depths of society. Petty larceny is cheered by the discomfiture of law; the precedent of St Stephens has dissolved the Old Bailey of half its terrors, and Filch cries, at the top of his voice, "Long live the Queen." But nothing was spared that could render this culpable proceeding a more direct offence. The procession was led past Carlton House! though the route by the Haymarket was equally open, and much more common to the public. But this offence has been practised by all the processions. The day chosen was one on which the psalms contained expressions that, in the gross application of party, might allude to the Queen's accusers, and to this odious mingling of human passions, in a solemn act of thanksgiving, was to have been added a manifesto, in the shape of a sermon.Archdeacon Bathurst, the son of the Bishop of Norwich, was the person who had the misfortune to appear fit for the purpose: and he arrived prompt and prepared to go through his part. The character of this divine is not that of " the prophet honoured in his own country," and he would probably be listened to with more respect any where than in Norfolk. But his piety was nothing to the purpose. He had figured as a pamphleteer, and levelled his eloquence upon the ministry. If this was not the source of his selection, it might be difficult to decide for what cause the royal smiles were employed to seduce the best shot in the shire from his natural enjoyments, and that, too, in the height of the season. The sermon was however forbidden, on ceremonial and acknowledged reasons, and glory" at one entrance quite shut out," to this reverend Meleager. The sermon has since been published, and it is on the whole a temperate production. It may have been fortunate for the Archdeacon's favour at Brandenburgh Court, that it was not preached, for it contains no obvious insults. We should have expected to see him reprimanded by her Majesty, through the medium of her Unitarian Secretary, and put at the bottom of the roll of the future reformed church. In his preface, (a safe ground,) he feels his paces rather firmer, and curvets, with constitutional freedom, according to the new version of Major Cartwright and his fellow expounders. He there declares his opinion, the opinion of Archdeacon Bathurst! "Quo me Bacche rapis tui plenum?" "That the passing of the Bill would have been, he feared, the loss of the Country, and certainly, the latter end of a government of fixed and known law." To oppose to this great politicoecclesiastical dictum, we have unfortunately nothing stronger than a majority of the Peers. But to the Legislators of the new school, the reason and feelings of the honourable by station, learning, and public service, &c. are "trifles light as air." The "proof strong as holy writ," is to be found in brutal clamour, and corrupt intimidation, in the ignorance that will not learn, and the folly that cannot understand. There is nothing quite so absurd as this in the sermon, which is a tissue of common-places, with, however, now and then, a hint sufficient to give an idea, at once of the zeal and of the reluctant restraint of the orator. "Though monarchs, like our◄ selves, (a pleasant participation of royalty,) may be deceived, yet, "that the people are no evil doers, (to use the language of the Book of Esther,) but may be the children of the most High, and most mighty living God, who hath ordered the kingdom both unto us, and to our progenitors, in the 1 ¡ most excellent manner." We cannot A find this passage in the Book of Esther, and we suspect, that the Archdeacon's theology is as irregular as his politics. But what similitude is there to be found between the Jews in their captivity, the chosen people humbled before Heaven, and in sorrow and privation honouring the law of their fathers; and an insolent and vitious rabble, urged on by desperate arts to outrages, and burning with the spirit of domination. The reformers of Charles's time found "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon" in the Scriptures, and "to your tents, O Israel," was not the the less a signal of rebellion, because it was taken half in derision and half in madness, from the great code of peace and holiness. We discharge the Archdeacon from imputations like these, because we believe him nothing blacker than the customary tinge of countrygentlemen, a pleasant convivialist, and an accurate shot. The good-humoured maxim has its truth. 3 "Un homme qui rit n'est pas dargereux." We have no fears of overthrow from the ambition that feels its "great appetite" glutted by a pigeon-match, or a steeple-chase. But the peroration of this sermon contains a passage which the author may have written in sincerity, but which, to those convinced of the Queen's guilt, must seem the most cutting and virulent attack on her feelings. "I see a disposition the most ear nest to conciliate those who have listened to her deadliest maligners; and this, which I will now speak for her, is the language I seem to hear from that personage to the assembly of this day: "I have afforded proof sufficient to convince, of my wrongs, the reasons of a vast portion of those who were most impartially disposed to hear evil as well as good of me. For those who were not satisfied, I have added my solemn declaration before God and my country, before the tribunal of my legislative judges. I have sanctified that declaration of a conscience void of offence toward God and men, as to the charges of my accusers, by partaking of those holy mysteries, from which the most suspicious nature will hardly appeal. "Ask your own hearts, is there any thing in rank or power so fascinating, and at the evening of a troublous and a stormy life, that I should go to my grave, where I hope to find repose, and to be joined again by the saint in heaven which so untimely left me with the drag chain of deliberate perjury? Is there any thing in the applause of a multitude here which can recompense me for the loss of the applause of angels in Heaven? Am I such a fool as to set time against immeasurable eternity, and at the moment, too, when human life wanes? Did I not believe even in Christ as the rock of my salvation, yet is there not a something after death, a something adown that stream which carries us to all eternity, enough to appal the imagination, and arrest the boldness of one who would defy wantonly the terrors of the invisible world? "Do you think that I would make a nation a mockery for aught which on this side of the grave is left me? If you think so, you would do it yourself; and you partake not of that charity, which thinketh no evil, and which hopeth all things." This composition is cast somewhat in the romantic and poetical mould, which distinguishes the rhapsodist of the Queen's answers. But it touches on thoughts, which, to the general conviction, are appalling. Those proceedings are of the highest importance as a clue to the general intricate design of the performers. The guilt or innocence of the Queen is comparatively trivial, but as matter of example. The true conclusion to be drawn, is to the unsparing and pestilent activity of the disturbers, who have taken upon their hands the pretended purification of the state; the eager and sleepless diligence with which they labour to take possession of every point from which the constitutional fortress may be commanded; their struggle for the Bar, the Army, and even the Church ;-" Omnia maria vexata." Every harbour and creek of the civil polity has been searched for a secure deposite of their contraband, imported from the decayed stores of French democracy. The republican spirit knows nothing too high or too low for its flight; "Now shaves with level wing the deep, now soars up to the burning concave." It is yet pent within strong bounds, but the hour that the nobler guardianship of the gate is removed the hour that a relaxed vigilance, or a corrupt fellow-feeling, is entrusted with the key; in that hour the portals will be flung open, and Satan be sent for to sicken and taint the peace of general human nature. |