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Harm not the buds! Harm not the buds that dare

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Harm not the buds that dare to peep, Lest April away h

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life should weep.

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NOTES ON THE NEWSPAPERS.

5th February.-The King's Speech.-The Session now commencing will probably decide, in the minds of the many, who wield the physical force, the question whether anything is to be hoped from the higher classes, and whether the people shall, or shall not, take their affairs into their own hands.

In the first Session of the Reformed Parliament, many allowances were made, which will not be made again: the new legislative body had the full benefit of the reluctance to consider a first trial as final; and the novelty of the situation was such that the public were bewildered, and did not themselves see with sufficient clearness what ought to be done, to render them very severe judges of their representatives for what they left undone. The public had expected much, but did not know exactly what. They felt sure that the Reform Bill must somehow be a great good to them, and they trusted that those who had been sufficiently their friends to give them the Bill, would find the means of making it have its natural effects. The first Session taught them that they were not to expect this: the Reformed Ministry and the Reformed Parliament would do no good spontaneously. The second will show whether they are capable of doing any when they are forced. If this trial should also fail, we live in times when mankind hurry on rapidly to ultimate consequences: the next question will be, what is the easiest and most expeditious way of getting rid of them.

Were Ministers in their senses, when, in so critical a position, they opened a session, perhaps destined to be the most important in our annals, with a speech, if possible, more unmeaning even than the common run of King's speeches? A speech studiously framed in such language as to promise nothing-to commit the Government to nothing?

Ministers are ignorant of the very first principles of statesmanship. The one maxim of a wise policy, in times of trouble and movement, is that which Madame Roland recommended to the Girondists :- Take the initiative!' Be you the first in the field, with whatever purpose. Whatever you do, do it before you are forced to it: do it while you may be supposed to have willed it, and not to have been passive instruments of some other will. If you would not be like dead twigs on an eminence, ready to be swept away by the first gust-if you would be something and not nothing-could you not for once seem to have a purpose, a plan, an idea, of your own! Could not assume what gives dignity even to wickedness! Do good, do even evil, but let it be from choice. If you cannot show a worthy character, show some character: if you cannot be loved, prithee be hated, but be not despised!

No. 87.

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Among modern statesmen, at least in England, the wisdom of the serpent seems even more infinitely rare than the innocence of the dove. The curse of a highly civilized state of society, are the half-honest, the men of feeble purposes. Scarcely any one has character enough to be either good or wicked. Give us rather a bold bad man,' a villain as villains were of old, with a strong intellect and a strong will. Give us for a ruler one who could and would do right whenever it was his interest; who could and would prevent all wrong, but such as he chose to promote: not men who, for want of courage to do either good or harm, fold their hands and let harm come.

If the vessel is merely to scud before the wind, what need of a steersman? We do not support a Government that we may ourselves redress our own grievances. We want rulers who do not wait to be told by us how we wish to be governed; men who can teach us what we should demand, who can at least anticipate our demands, not slowly and grudgingly obey them. We want men from whom it shall not be necessary to extort all they give, men who shall not, instead of gaining, actually lose popularity by every fresh concession.

We want, in short, men who on every great question will act. as the present Ministers have acted on the Reform Bill, and on that alone.

The people were anxiously waiting for the propositions of the Ministry on Municipal Corporations, on the Poor Laws, and on the abuses in the Church. The speech says, that the reports of the Commissioners on these several subjects will be laid before Parliament, and will afford them much useful information,'. whereby they will be enabled to judge of the nature and extent of any existing defects and abuses, and in what manner the necessary corrections may in due season be safely and beneficially applied.' Not even a promise to propose anything. They may have something to propose, but their minds are not yet made up. When are such minds ever made up? It is literally true, that the only two things to which the speech either directly or by implication pledges the Ministry, are, first to propose a final adjustment' of Irish tithes, (the extinction of which was announced by Mr. Stanley two years ago,) and this without injury to any institution in Church or State;' secondly, not to consent to a repeal of the Union with Ireland. On this latter point, indeed, the speech is as explicit, and as emphatic, as heart could wish. They will resist Mr. O'Connell even to the death. The collective energy, courage, and determination of the entire Cabinet, have been all thrown into this one act of what they doubtless deem antique heroism and magnanimity.

The debate which ensued, and which, as those say who were present, was as flat and dull as if the Session had already lasted six months, made no further disclosure of the purposes of

Ministers but in the course of the evening it was discovered, that they intended to propose some trifling amendment (it did not appear what) in the marriage law, and that they hoped, but were not sure, that on the subject of English tithes, some measure might be brought to completion in the present Session. It has further transpired that they do not mean to propose a registration of births, marriages, and deaths; that they have not decided whether or not to re-introduce the Local Courts' Bill*; but that there are two things, besides the repeal of the Union, which they are firmly determined to resist: any alteration in the Corn Laws, and any separation of Church and State.

Is this the way to retain any hold on a people every day becoming more alienated from the higher classes, and every day growing in the capacity and in the habit of organized co-operation among themselves?

On the showing of these very men, a great change has taken place in the structure of society, and has, through their instrumentality, been communicated to our political institutions. Power has passed from the few into the hands of the many. On their own showing too, the many are most imperfectly informed, most liable to error, and likely to make a most dangerous use of their newly-acquired power, unless they somewhere find wiser guidance than their own. Accordingly, the Whigs deliver to them, by word and deed, the following instructions:We are the wisest and most excellent persons in the world; the only persons who are fit to govern you, as all, except Tories and anarchists, acknowledge. But do not expect from us any thing to improve your condition. If that is your object, you have only yourselves to look to. We, if you would but let us alone, desire no better than to leave every thing as it is. Some things we do not mean to give you, say or do what will: you shall not have cheap bread, nor be allowed to choose your own parsons. But whatever else you ask for, you may have, by making us sufficiently uncomfortable; for we are a liberal and enlightened Administration, and are always ready to quit any spot as soon as it is made too hot to hold us. Therefore, if you want us to stir, make ready your fuel and light your fire. But as long as we conveniently can, we are your men for upholding existing institutions. We are the pillars of the Constitution, and it cannot be in safety if it rests any where but upon us, because of our yielding nature. If the Tories had it, you would storm and rave, and blow down it and them together; but we, you see, go upon castors, and, you are aware, do not absolutely object to being pushed from under it when we must.'

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What is this but exhorting the people to incessant agitation?

Since this was written, Ministers have announced that they have made up their minds to propose a Local Courts Bill, and not to propose any modification of the Timber Duties. Once beaten on this important measure by a Tory Parliament, they have not the heart to try again.

We will yield nothing to reason,' say the Whig ministry, but every thing to clamour.' These are the men who call Radicalism dangerous. It is Radicalism to demand that the people may be ruled by men of their choice; men, therefore, in whom they can confide; in whose hands they may place their affairs, and feel at liberty to be quiet. Whig policy, on the contrary, relies on a perennial conflict between opposite principles of evil: on the one hand, a Government, which, never attempting to originate any good, neither has nor claims public confidence; and on the other, perpetual agitation.

It is policy like this which alone can render the prospects of our country and of the world seriously alarming. The people are always eager to follow good guidance, and the sole danger is of their not finding it. Intelligence abounds among the English democracy; but it is not cultivated intelligence. It is mostly of the self-educated sort; and this is commonly more microscopic than comprehensive: it sees one or a few things strongly, and others not at all; it is the parent of narrowness and fanaticism. The coming changes, for come they must and will, are fraught with hope in any case, but also with peril, unless there be found to lead the van of opinion, to place themselves in the front rank of the popular party, a section of the wisest and most energetic of the instructed classes; men whose education and pursuits have given them a wider range of ideas, and whose leisure has admitted of more systematic study, than will, for a long time to come, be possible, save in occasional rare instances, to those who labour with their hands.

It cannot be but that there are such men in England; but we know not where to look for them in public life. The present Ministers not only are incapable of being, but do not even attempt to seem such men. They have neither the intellect, the knowledge, the energy, the courage, nor even the wish. They are wanting in the very first of the necessary conditions,-faith in improvement; without which it is impossible to take the lead in a nation which not only believes in, but demands improvement. They have no belief that the very measures which they are instrumental in carrying, will have any beneficial consequences. To their minds the Reform Bill itself was but a prudent and necessary concession to popular opinion. What can be expected from such men, but what we find? that they will never do any thing till they are forced, always do as little as they are permitted, and endeavour that even that little should lead to nothing.

There is a question which a short time must solve, and on its solution the fate of this nation entirely depends :-Can the higher classes, before it is too late, furnish the country with ministers, who, together with strong popular sympathies, have the capacity and the energy to lead, and not wait to be driven?