MR. BELLAMY'S RESIGNATION.
THERE is something exceedingly melancholy in the contemplation of a great than retiring from public life. We know that be is not dead, but we feel that he is to live no more for us. The long public career of Mr. BELLAMY makes the blow more than usually staggering in his case. "We may mention," says the Observer of this important event, " that Mr. BELLAMY was actually born in the House of Commons, sixty-niue years ago ; and that for many years he has been engaged in active duty in the service of the House."
A rumour, hinted at by the classical and well-informed journal from which we have quoted, speaks volumes regarding the impor- tance of Mr. BELLAMY'S service—" This resignation will lead, we hear, to a division of the office which he held. The refreshment- rooms will be confided to the management of his son, Mr. E. Bellamy ; whilst the office of housekeeper is to be conferred upon a gentleman, whose name we have heard, but which we refrain from mentioning until we learn that the appointment shall have been formally made." No less herculean an intellect than that of BELLAMY could suffice for the discharge of two such onerous duties.
But has there not been something like undue precipitancy in filling up the office of Keeper of the Refreshment-rooms ? It is possible that the mantle of the father may have descended upon the shoulders of the son, but this was not a matter to be lightly taken upon trust. The appointment seems to have been made with as little preliminary inquiry as if it had been only a Keeper of the British Museum that was to be selected. Surely a Committee of Taste should have been nominated to sit and report : there are plenty of Members in the House who, from their conscientious, persevering attention to Mr. BELLAMY'S department of the public business, are qualified to conduct the scrutiny. There scarcely needed the distribution of BELLAMY'S charge between two "degenerate men of modern days," to tell how im- portant a part he has played. Who has not heard of BELLAMY and his kitchen ? To have sat in the Gallery of the House of Com- mons, was what every provincial visiter of London could brag of; to have been introduced "under the Gallery," was a shade more distingue ; but to have eaten a beefsteak in Bellamy's, entitled the man who had achieved the feat to a voice potential in every club he might belong to in his native town.
Sixty-nine years ago, Mr. BELLAMY was "actually born" in the House of Commons. He has survived the place of his birth, and continued in the service of its inmates; who, unlike other occupants of bad houses, have been allowed to settle peaceably in the immediate vicinity of the habitation out of which they were burnt. What a deal of gossip he must have heard in his time! Did he keep a diary ? If he did, doubtless the public will receive it from the editorial hands of the author of Lights and Shadows of the Metropolis; whose delicately discriminating and diplomatically cautious pen we might almost fancy we recognize in the elegant announcement of Mr. BELLAMY'S intended retirement. No more appropriate chronicler could well be imagined of the average bon mots of Members of Honourable House.
Of course there will be some public expression of the general sense of Mr. BELLAMY'S important services. A dinner of all the Members of the House—such as was given by the Whig section to Lord JOHN RUSSELL—would be peculiarly appropriate. It would be in some sort repaying in kind the good offices the retiring Veteran has so long been conferring upon them all.
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