TO THE EARL OF DURHAM.
Tr is hard for a man of rank and wealth to avoid being deceived by his parasites. l'heir unceasing object is to please hint ; an object which can be accomplished only by making him feel pleased svith himself ; amid they can make him feel pleased with himself only by saying, when they speak of the great man to the great man, things that flatter the selflove which is commen to us all. The least blind of the Bishops never hears from his chaplain a doubt as to the continuance of episcopal wealth and power ; no humble companion of Lord GRF.Y ever warned him of his approaching fall ; no Goma; est, Dawsots, or HOLMES, dared to tell Werosso-roN, that the Dictator was a feeble creature when compared with the spirit of Reform. But yesterday. a great matt emongst the Tories, and a clever one too, said to a Durhamite_ " We shall beat you yet." " How so ?" asked the other. " Why," replied the grandee, " Pin told that the shopkeeping Members returned by the ten-poundere, and all the Tail, are thoroughly sick of Parliament." " Who told you that?"— His answer gave the names of three or four low Tories, who live upon that grandee. They had made hint believe., because the belief was pleasant to him, that the next general election would return a Tory House of Commons. Such are the straws that drowning parasites present to their sinking patrons. But all parasites deceive all patrons, whether sinking or tieing in the political scale. Do Lord DURHAM and his humble gossips form an exception from that law of human nature ? I fear me not; and, being no parasite, thank God ! I will tell your Lordship why.
No one suspects you of deliberate treason to the cause of Reform. How then shall your admirers account for your present conduct ? But before I answer that question, let me state the ease against you.
As a Reformer of long standing, the author of the Reform Bill, and one deeply interested in the maintenance of law and order ; as the bete noire of the Tory faction, as "the accursed thing" in the eyes of priests who love to read the John Bull ; us a man of spirit and of Liberal opinions, who is supposed qualified to deal properly with the ignorant demagogues, as well as the frantic portion of the nobility; as more than a match for both CENIBERLA ND and COBBETT ; in all these characters, you enjoy the confidence, and indeed time affection, of a great party —the party of sincere and thoroughgoing, but cautious Reformers. All of a sudden, without rhyme or reason, you have deserted that party: your party it may no longer be called. Where are you, my Lord ? At Lambton, hundreds of miles from London, while the Lords are kicking out your Warwick Borough Bill, the Dissenters' Admission Bill, which you voluntarily pledged yourself to support ; and when your presence in a certain place was required in order that one Lord at least should state the grounds on which Reformers support the Poor-Law Bill, the bill for abolishing Imprisonment for Debt, and the improved Irish Tithe Bill.
Some say that you went away in despair. If so, you bad better stay away, and desire your parasites in London to announce that you have done with politics. If you give up the fight, then doff your uniform, and
eseape from the ridicule of being styled general-in-chief of an army which you have deserted.
An enemy (see the Standard,* with remarks, by a friend, in the Times,f asserts that you are engaged with the treacherous Chancellor in sotne plot for sending Lord AIELBOURNE to join Lord GREY in retirement. It is false ; to use the words of Lord Chief Justice ELLENBOROUGH, "it is false as t ell." But see to what foul charges you have made yourself liable, by running away, and without a word of explanation too, while the Tories, every Lord and Bishop of them, stay here to defeat every thing in the shape of a measure of reform. Some small politicians, who brag of enjoying your confidence, hint mysteriously that you have resolved on political suicide; that, attracted by the glitter of vice-royalty, you are about to destroy yourself as a statesman in the fatal Castle of Dublin. In defending such an "arrangement," they say, " What the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND thought good, Lord DURHAM must not despise." So they mean to honour you, by putting you on a par with him who, during his extra • To speak plainly. the conspirators are the Earl of Durham and his immediate retainers supported by (with shame we write it, and with sorrow it will be read), sup. ported by the Chancellor, who is willing to barter his reputation. as a man of St:1011 and honour, for the empty dignity of Lord Durham's Premier. In fact, the intrigue is How so far mature. tbat Lora Melbourne, Lord Palmerston. Mr. Ellice, Lord Laos:downy, and other members of the Cabinet, scarcely conceal that they are but provisional holders of oflice—in Downing Street phrase, the warming-parts of a Destructive Cabinet. • • • Lou! Durham, we repeat it, is forming the Cabinet, with the acquiescence of the Chancellor, who is to he the nominal Premier.—Standard, Ang.ust 4. Nobody can have been much about London fur the last week, without hearing It buzzed in all directions, even w here it nag not proclaimed by the Tory nett spapc.m, that Lords Brougham and Durham have been and still are actively busied in an IT trigue to turn out Lord Melbourne, and to set up the Chancellor as Prime Minister in his room. We shall neither accredit nor deny this piece of gossip. On Lord Durham's Mlle, a voluntary partnership with Lord Brougham would seem the most improbable thing in the world, if the condoct of public men were always c tleulated on just principles, or guided by natural feelings. Lord Durham ought to know the Chan: cellor by this time. It is shrewdlysuspected of the learned Lord, that Lord Durham s exclusion from the Cabinet has, at least on one occasion if not more, been in great part accomplished by manumeres to which the learned Lord was not entirely a stranger. It is certain that the Lord Chancellor was the iudividual who moved to postpone the second reading of the Warwick Disfranchisement Bill for the ominous term of suC montlis,—in other words. to strangle it ; rind this bill was Lord OurIllull's f It onrite ward, it was 1114 elwral de tataille in the House of Peers. It were to be wished that the noble Lord had remaims1 at his post to protect his own undertakiog, from the guardian by whose ling it has been squeezed to death. It is hardly credible, however, that Lord Durham could, after all he is aware of, be weak enough to become a whistle for Lord Brougham to blow upon. and theu to be flung aside with happy carelessuess when the tune was over.—Tieics, August 7. ordinary embassy to CHARLES the Tenth, obtained the anatifying title of tone dire. By Heaven, I fear there may be some truth in this last story ! It reminds one of your extraordinary embassy ; which was a silly business at best, and revives a notion which used to prevail concerning you, that you are unusually fond of pomp, and of that respect which is paid with mere forms and words. But still I cannot, I will not believe it, until (alas, if it should be so!) Joliet GF.ottea Lasarrrox shall have really sold his right and his might for worse, far worse than nothing. A needy man, or a dull simpleton, may hold the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland without injury ; but to a popular statesman, that place is (you know it, for it has long been an Irish necessity) utter destruction. Lastly, it is asserted by the Tories, that you have sold the Warwick Bill and the Dissenters' Admission Bill, and your very person, or at least the absence of your person from the house of Lords whilst they were kieking out reform measures ; sold yourself, and your party as far as you could sell it, say the Tories, to the Lords BROUGHAM and MELacatatar., for the plare of Foreign Secretary; that you are to be paid for going out of town at a critical moment for the Reforin party, with Lord PALMERS roN's office; and that the pretext for so disgraceful a bargain is to be the personal attachment towards you of the Chief of the Holy Alliance. This lie may be left to speak for itself; but see to what shameful charges you are subjected, by doing what is unaccountable ! Great pains being taken here to make it believed that the Chronicle is your organ, I have lately watched that paper, hoping to find in it some explanation of the mystery that so confounds your friends. But, on this subject, the Chronicle, with its hints and contradictions, its pretence to knowledge and real ignorance, only makes bad worse: instead of learning any thing from it, I am glad to throw it aside, for fear of being deprived of my own senses by its puzzling riddles, which are of a very curious sort. Here I say to the Chronicle, " Well, I give it up ; tell me ;" and on Monday he will answer, saying in effect—" My riddles are quite original; for they are made on purpose so as not to admit of any explanation." Lord DURHAM'S organ, as they call it, changes from day to day without any result, like an interminable cat's-cradle. Tantalized by its confusion-worse-con.. founded on the subject of this letter, I put the question directly to your Lordship—II/fry have you kft your party in the lurch, at a moment when, more than at any tints in the session, they required that their leader should be with them If you imagine that the question requires no answer, you are unfit to be the leader of a great party. The Reformers will not bear contempt from any man, whatever their respect for him. And, on your own account, if you still wish to be the head of the Reform party, an explanation, diet shall reinstate you in their good opinion, is more especially requisite at the present moment, when some of them are beginning to think that their objects may be obtained without your assistance. From late changes in the Cabinet, the improved spirit of Ministers, and the certainty of a "collision "and a popular victory next year, it seems not unreasonable to infer, that the ends of the Reform Bill may be accomplished, though Lord DURHAM should never be a NliniSter. Nor are
there wanting others to suggest, that you have not shown much capacity for ending the party. They ask—why you surround yourself with people who dare not tell you any disagreeable truth ?—why you did not open your house in town to all the best men of mark who deny that the Reform Bill is a final measure of Parliamentary Reform ?—why Lambton hall is not made, by means of its master's urbanity and
cheerfulness, the place of summer rendezvous for the chiefs of the party ; a holuse in which, as Madame DE STAEL said of Bowood,
the host is the only parasite ?—why the opinions of the party are not represented, with deeent ability and steadiness of purpose, in even one newspaper ?—why, in short, the party of which you are the leader,
shmild want m su-ly all the qualities that, in a party, depend upon being well led? Such questions are not asked without cause. They will be fully, though painfully answered, unless you should have to offer for your present absence from London better reasons than any of those which arc put forth by your enemies and pretended friends.
Earnestly hoping the best, yet not without a feeling of doubt and
alarm, " I pause for a reply." A. B. C.
P.S. Saturday Morning.—I was in the House of Lords last night. During all the session, there has been no such muster of the Tories as at the present moment. WELLINGTON, surrounded by his large majority, sits there giving the law, as when he was a popular Prime Minister. The Whig Lords seem thoroughly afraid of him ; and not a word is uttered on behalf of the Nation, or even of the Commons House. At last, there is collision between the two Houses ; and Lord DURHAM has disappeared ! But you are punished as you deserve. Lord BROUGEAM, taking advantage of your absence, gave you a hard blow. That uncertain, irregular, tricky, and suspected politician, said—" Lord Din-lam is one of the oldest, most valued, and most intimate qf my friends ; e ith whom, in political matters, be it observed, I agree better than I do with many others." Come back, my Lord; appear, if there be tiine ; but, at all events, let somebody announce for you, if you will not condescend to do it for yourself, that you are not the most intimate political friend of Lord BROUGHAM and VAux.
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