So Although they were not unanimous in its support, the majority decided that this odious measure should be passed in the House of Commons. as it that Mr. Vansittart has "set his place upon the cast,” appears they are resolved to "stand the hazard of the die." The four regicides, who arrived at Portsmouth last week from Harfleur, are directed to leave the country; they intend to proceed to Holland. Their names are Charles Jean Etienne Thomas, Jean Michel Hubert Dumanoir, Leornor Ha-, and Simeon Jacques Henry de Bonne Sœur Bourginiere. The editor of the Courier, Mr. S——, gave a grand dinner a few days since to the Earl of Yarmouth, Mr. Croker, &c., when the magnificent service of plate, made by Rundell and Bridge, was exhibited; also the snuff-box, set with brilliants, presented to him by the King of France. The establishment at the Pavilion costs 1000l. per diem. Drury Lane Theatre: the sub-committees, appointed at the close of Whitbread's life, are broken up; Peter Moore, M.P., and Douglas Kinnaird, will not sit together at the same table; Rae, the manager, has resigned, and Macready is appointed; Lord Byron seldom appears. The Argyle Rooms are opened every Thursday evening as a French theatre. Amid all the contention in the political world, my Lord Castlereagh (although he has been seriously ill ever since his return from Brighton) found leisure to attend one of the last performances. His lordship was between two marchionesses, Salisbury and Downshire. 66 There is a great want of respect in the Princess Charlotte towards her seniors. "My old aunts say, &c. &c." "I neither like a shoulder of mutton, nor my grandmother." London, March 5, 1816. If, as we read in Tully, and experience has told the world before that great orator's time, the comfort of the wretched is to have a number of fellow-sufferers, it seems no less true that our follies appear less glaring, and shock the least when they are more generally imitated by others. In that case, let us not blush so very deep for the sins of court. "What a good thing it is not to have any reputation to lose!" Many distinguished foreigners are visiting at Salisbury House, Sir Henry Wellesley married the daughter of the hostess last week; the former returns to Madrid, in his diplomatic capacity, in June next. The Princess Talleyrand is still at Bath; her highness is quite domesticated, and very reserved in public. A junction has taken place between a proportion of the Naval Club with that of the Military one. There are now forty-six directors; Lord Lynedoch, chairman of these, sixteen belong to the navy. The Prince Regent is a member. The United Military and Naval Club underwent some discussion, last night, in the House of Commons; General Gascoigne stated seriously, in its defence, that it would afford a cheap ordinary, and good company, to the two professions visiting London. The mess is furnished at twenty-six shillings per head. The great number of petitions presented last night in the House of Commons against the income tax, delayed the moving of the Army Estimates until nine o'clock. Upon the motion of Mr. Wynne, the Com mittee was instructed to provide for the maintenance of the British army in France. In the Committee, Mr. Bankes argued at length against the proposed Estimates, and suggested that the standing-army should be reduced to 60,000 men, as sufficient for any purpose, exclusive of the army of occupation in France. Lord Lascelles, last night, in the House of Commons, thought that an income tax should not press upon landlords, tenants, or the commercial interest. A tax like this would resolve the riddle, "What is it that goes round the house, and round the house, and never touches the house?" A considerable degree of expectation prevailed yesterday evening at both Houses of Parliament under the idea that a royal communication, respecting the intended marriage of the Princess Charlotte, would be made. The proceeding, however, did not take place. The Brighton letters of this day say, "the Prince Regent will be in town in a few days." A messenger from B. arrived at noon with the information that His R. H. would not return to Carlton House at the earliest period before the 20th instant. His H. is said to be much better, but the debility resulting from the late attack of the gout has thrown so great a weakness into the limbs that he cannot stand upon them. It is reported that some of the most distinguished country gentlemen have intimated to the Earl of L, that there must be a total end to the system of wasteful and ruinous expenditure in all the departments of the state, and particularly at head-quarters, and upon military establishments. The noble earl said, that no man was more anxious than himself to retrench unnecessary expense-and that he had remonstrated against various things that appeared to him to be unreasonable, at least, if not at all times improper, and (which, from the plan and manner in which they were executed) reflected no credit on the taste and magnificence of the nation. He added, that his opposition to these things being well known, he was somewhat surprised that complaint should be made to him upon the subject. To this it was replied in a very laconic manner-" My lord, if your remonstrances were not effectual, it was your duty to resign. We are resolved, one and all, to support no minister who shall not make economy and retrenchment the basis and condition of his service.” happened on Saturday last, and the several persons alluded to spoke out last night in the House of Commons. This The reign of terror is returning. The police are about to act upon the Pitt system, that of 1794, 95, 6, 7, and 8. The keepers of taverns and public-houses have just received a circular notice, verbally delivered, to be circumspect in the choice of the company they admit into their houses-particularly clubs, and to attend to the political sentiments therein expressed. The Jacobins are alarmed, and as many of them have an intemperance of tongue, they have agreed to lock themselves up in their own houses, instead of passing their evenings in the mixed society of a public room. Really, there is in ministers an appearance of doubt, terror, infatuation, and self-conviction, that might excite the compassion of their most obdurate enemies-we pity the feelings of the chancellor of the exchequer. He positively does not know what he does and what he says." March 5.-5 to 4—the odds, in the lobby of the House of Commons this day that the ministers do not carry the income tax. Lord Ellenborough has foresworn the Pavilion amusements! His lordship returned sorely afflicted with a fit of the gout, for which he is doing penance. He will drink no more skull-cap-the prince's name for strong whiskey punch, which he drinks himself in preference to any other liquor. London, March 6, 1816. The Ministerial Influenza.-Alexander the Great was wry-necked, and by some extraordinary fatality all his courtiers became wry-necked also. It is somewhat curious to find a like fatality attending the present race of courtiers, but it cannot be pretended that as in the Macedonian court, the disease is affectation, the present ministers being proud, untractable, and of inflexible uprightness and integrity. However, such is the fact. The Prince R- -t first became sick, Lord Castlereagh became sick, then Lord Liverpool became sick, and then Lord Bathurst; on Friday night the Right Hon. Wellesley Pole was taken sick, and in half-an-hour after Bragge Bathurst was taken sick. The disorder, we find, is spreading, and has reached some of the minor ministers. Monday night Mr. Brogden was taken sick, and referred from the committee of ways and means to a committee of physicians. Several other ministerial members are alarmed, and betray symptoms of illness, or a predisposition to disease. This influenza, it will be seen, differs not only from that of the Macedonian court, but also that which visited the Grecian army at the siege of Troy. That began with the hacks, and jades, and spaniels, and other beasts in the camp, and spread upwards; the present ministerial influenza, on the contrary, began at the top and is extending downwards. It is curious to observe that the symptoms of the disorder are different in different men, varying with their constitutions. In the chancellor of the exchequer it is accompanied with a vertigo or swimming in the head and absence of mind, or rather, to use a pugilistic phrase, "being abroad," vulgarly called bothered; Lord Castlereagh's illness is a sort of nausea-his stomach spoiled with nice and delicate feeding of late, cannot bear the rough and vulgar food served out to him since his return from living with the other sovereigns of Europe-a little purging, however, it is expected, will speedily reconcile his stomach to the plain wholesome English fare to which it was accustomed previous to his visit to the continent. The disorder of the Right Hon. Wellesley Pole is attended with an extraordinary depression of spirits, arising, it is supposed, from the weight of the heavy responsibility of his office as master of the mint. Nature, it is said, abhors a vacuum, and therefore his disease is further aggravated by the disgust which a sinecure must create. The friends of the secretary-of-war dread a consumption or reduction of physical strength, and Mr. Huskisson appears like a man lost in a wood. But, however the appearance of the disease may vary in different patients, it has one "fundamental feature,” as my Lord Castlereagh would say, common to all, that is a tendency to a decline or wasting of the solids, strongly indicating a total breaking up of the constitution. Petitions against the income tax poured into the House of Commons last night in such numbers, that it became necessary to postpone Mr. Weston's motion upon the agricultural interests of the country until tomorrow (Thursday). In the course of the discussion which they produced, Mr. Vansittart stated, that by the modification of the tax which he contemplated, a relief would be granted to the former in the reduction of other taxes equal to the burden which the income-tax would impose. It would thus appear that it is for the principle of the tax that he is contending, and that its original inequality is to be increased by a distinction in favour of the agricultural interests. Divide et impera is a favourite maxim with some politicians. To a question from Mr. Tierney, relative to the substitute which was to be proposed in the event of the rejection of the income-tax, Mr. Vansittart answered that he did not anticipate any such event, and therefore trusted that none would be necessary. Lord Cochrane moved his charges against Lord Ellenborough, accusing him of partiality, misrepresentation, oppression, &c. Four o'clock. p.m.-The topic of conversation this day is the following -Lord C it is said, has written to the Marquis of Hstating "that if it had not been for the degree of relationship that subsisted between them, there was no language expressive enough for him to utter his contempt, and which he would not use for the hypocrisy and apostacy which had marked his conduct, particularly in a certain high quarter, upon the subject of the income-tax. interest will not support the income-tax. The whole of the Carlton House junta are against the measure. The family say that the measure ought not to have been pressed so far; that a great part of the odium resulting from the inquiry into the expenditure of the civil list might have been avoided had not the measure been pressed so far. The H I was misinformed upon the subject of Caulincourt's arrival; R. was deceived as to the person. A letter was received from C. yesterday, in which he says, "if you hear of my moving my quarters it will be on the eve of some great convulsion." The two Irish peers have withdrawn their proxies upon the Duke of Bedford's motion on the state of the nation. In haste, adieu, DAYS FOR EVER GONE. BY MRS. PONSONBY. COULD I, in days for ever gone, When thou wer't lov'd, and thou alone, Have prophesied to mine own heart The distance of its future part, Tears would have stain'd the brightest page Open'd through life's bleak pilgrimage. But now, when on our separate fate, Jan.-VOL. LXXIX. NO. CCCXIII. D THE NEXT OF KIN A MEMOIR. BY MRS. GORE. CHAP. VI. WHAT a weight was now upon my spirits! It cannot be supposed but that the hours I had been dreaming away by the side of Agnes, had brought forth their fruit. Her influence over my feelings was unbounded. It was now almost sufficient for my happiness to breathe in her pre sence. My passion did not, however, blind me to the fact that my society was courted by the squire, less out of compliment to my uncle, than in the hope of winning over to his church a convert in the enjoyment of a noble fortune, as well as heir-presumptive to the estates of Westfern. For my uncle was not on such friendly terms with Haggerston as to confide to him the real state of my prospects; and his daughter, for reasons of her own, had also kept him in the dark. More than once, indeed, when, on his alluding to my fine income, I was on the point of apprising him of the truth, an eager sign from Agnes suspended my explanations; and I had consequently some grounds for supposing that if, on attaining my majority, I resolved to offer her my hand, and comply with her father's requirements by the adoption of a faith which, since I have heard its doctrines expounded by the lips of an angel, had acquired authority and authenticity in my sight, I had little to apprehend from opposition at Campley. But these visions were now at an end. I saw that Agnes had welcomed and cherished me only as the kinsman of Cuthbert;-that Haggerston had borne with me only as the kinsman of Cuthbert ;-that Campley had been open to me only as the kinsman of Cuthbert. All the favours I had fondly attributed to personal predilection, were the mere reflection of their fond attachment to the unfortunate maniac! The moment this conviction took possession of my mind, I hurried to the chamber containing his portrait and Lady Margaret's; and now, enlightened by Dr. Hipsley's revelations, how different an interest did they assume from the day when, guided by old Bernard, I sauntered through the state-rooms, barely conscious that I had a cousin, and interested in the name of Lady Margaret Westfern, only from knowing her to be a daughter of the house of Howard!-Now, I stood with folded arms before the portrait, endeavouring to read in the features line by line and page by page, the mysteries of her strange eventful history; while in the almost seraphic countenance of her son, I seemed to discern superhuman confirmation of the Oriental superstition that the infirm of mind are under the especial protection of GOD. I stood gazing upon his face till I could have fancied he was about to address me ;-about to tax me with treachery, in having profited by his absence to endeavour to supplant him in the affections so dear to him. |