At the anniversary meeting of the British and Foreign School
Society, this week, Lord John Russell took occasion to explain, that " it certainly was the agreeable custom of his life to attend annually at these meetings," but that " he had not for some years found sufficient time to enable him to do so." The load of state affairs, it is to be presumed, has been lightened since the Premier has had only Papal Aggression and the tinkering of Sir Charles Wood's bungled Budgets to occupy his time ; and he now finds leisure to indulge in his former recreations. The Emperor Maxi- milian, father of Charles the Fifth, towards the close of his reign conceived the idea of resigning his temporal honours and getting himself elected Pope. He canvassed the conclave as zealously (and by much the same means) as ever Parliamentary candidate canvassed St. Albans or Sudbury ; and a letter to his daughter has been preserved, in which he expatiates with gusto on the spiritual advantages that will accrue to him and her from his being made Pope and consequently a saint. Possibly our Premier is, like the Emperor Maximilian, ambitious of closing his career by exchanging secular for ecclesiastical power, and renews the old relations with Exeter Hall, which some events of late years had rendered less intimate, preparatory to an exchange of the Treasury for an appointment as " Ministre des Cultes," in which he may gratify his theological tastes by remodelling the Church according to his newest notions.
