supported the present Ministry-have made them what they are; and they expect that their wishes, and not those of their opponents, should govern the conduct of the wily Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The next point, on which the Tories feel strongly, and on which they have spoken and acted openly, is, Corporation Reform. Before we put the evidence of this fact under the eyes of our readers, it may be well to observe on a remarkable instance of duplicity on the part of Sir Robert Peel, respecting this matter. The people of England desire that the Minister should be favourable to Corporation Reform-Sir Robert, wishing to blind them, says, in his address to the electors of Tamworth, that he was favourable to the inquiry respecting corporations; and, in proof, he adds "I was a member of the committee appointed to make the inquiry." Sir R. Peel well knew the falsehood he was guilty of, when he penned this passage. He knew, although the bulk of the nation did not, that, in the committee of the House of Commons, persons for and against the committee, are always put on it-some because they are favourable, some because they are unfavourable to the inquiry; and we assert, without the least dread of contradiction, that Sir R. Peel was put upon the Corporation Committee, because he was unfavourable to the inquiryand, farther, that he well knew such to be the case. Let the world judge, from this instance, of the candour and ingenuous honesty of Sir Robert Peel.

But the more important matter is the real feeling of the Tory party on the question of Corporation Reform. On this point, we have little or no Parliamentary evidence; no debates having taken place upon the subject, except a short one, on Lord Althorp's moving for a committee to inquire into it. This debate was remarkable for nothing, except a declaration of Sir R. Vivyanthat he considered the House of Commons an unfit tribunal to judge of the merits and demerits of existing corporations.

The

Out of Parliament, however, the evidence is rife, respecting the opinions of the Tory party. The whole strength of the existing corrupt corporations has been put forth to support the Tory | candidates. There seemed a natural alliance between these two bodies; and every one understood the reason of the alliance. The corporations believed, and said, that the Tories, on coming into power, would render abortive the endeavours lately made to reform their iniquities. Tories, from one end of the country to the other, acquiesced in this statement; and, sure we are, that no honest man of that party would say that he desired any alteration in the old Corporation system. We would ask Sir Robert Peel, if he intends to increase the Corporation constituencies, by making them identical with the present Parliamentary ones? Does he intend to make the Corporation officers elective, and responsible to the people? If he do mean these things, wherein lies the difference between him and the Whigs, and why do the old corporations favour and sup

port him? The truth cannot be denied or hidden -they have supported him because they believed that he would adhere to the principles and professions of his party; and they, on this matter, mean that no change is to take place.

On the subject of the Dissenters and the English Church, it is unnecessary to do more than to indicate the points on which the Tory party have strenuously, nay, vehemently declared against Reform. They desire to preserve the Universities as exclusive as ever. They object to deprive the Established Churchmen of their control over the burials, baptisms, and marriages of the Dissenters, or to deprive them of the fees derived from these sources. They object, moreover, to relieving the Dissenters from the unjust burden of maintaining an establishment to which they give no spiritual adherence-from which they derive no spiritual benefit. As respects the English Church, it is the declared opinion of Sir R. Inglis-and he speaks the sentiments of the Tories in this matter that no body of laymen have a right to regulate either the temporalities or spiritualities of the Church. The Church, then, according to the Tory principles, if reformed, must reform herself.

Such, on these various points, then, are the principles of the Tories. To support these principles, and to prevent the success of the antagonist ones, they have lately turned the Whigs out of power. They, as a party, have made their grand stand-not for place, but for principle-to maintain, as they say, the constitution inviolateto save us from all change whatsoever. Such is the object of the body: now, let us look into the conduct of their leaders.

If the Whigs have views that are dangerous, and principles unworthy of those who are to preside over the destinies of this country, let them, we say, be discarded, and let the opponent principles be brought into immediate action; but, in the name of common sense and common honesty, let not a cheat be put upon the people, by first decrying the tenets of the Liberals, and then adopting them. Sir Robert Peel calls himself a Tory-he is supported by the Tory party throughout the kingdom. What their tenets are, we have seen. That they do not include Reform, is evident. If, then, he be an honest opponent of the late Ministry, let him not adopt their plans and opinions; but let him attempt to carry on the government upon the true Conservative doctrines. Let him shew that he really believed the Liberals Destructives, by putting into practice the positions he took up while in the ranks of the Opposition. Let his object be, not as he now would have the nation believe, to repeat

tions between Catholic and Protestant, in full vigour and efficiency; let him exclude the Catholic from the magistracy; let him gather tithes even at the bayonet's point; let him main. tain, in all its splendid extravagance, the " great ecclesiastical enormity of Europe," the Irish Church; let him support, in their pristine corruption, the corporations of this country. Let him do all this-and his friends may say, he has redeemed the one great error of his life: the writer will say, that, at least, he is now a consistent politician; and the House of Commons will declare that he is unfit to rule over this country. He will lose his place, but preserve his character. But, for this course, neither his courage nor intellect is well fitted. He can bear an imputation of dishonesty, but will shrink from being called a fool. He can find devices, and apologies, and expedients for pursuing a compromising conduct; but lacks the hardihood and commanding talent requisite to lend dignity to the unbending Opposition of a consistent Tory. Already has his weakness appeared. He had only just occupied the place from which he had ousted the Whigs, when he adopted their measures and their language. Any man who should read his address to the electors of Tamworth and know not the name of the writer, would deem it the composition of a wary, and somewhat compromising Whig. There is no hatred of Reform expressed because he knew the people hoped for it. There is much promise of change-because he knew it was desired by the nation. But can the nation bear this? Can they suffer so plain and open a piece of trickery to be practised on them? If Sir Robert Peel do not intend these Reforms-if he means to delude the people by the

mere showy exterior of Reform-then he is not worthy of the high position he holds among a civilized people; but if, on the other hand, he does not intend this deception, but is about, really, and bona fide, to give to the utmost that which he would be believed to have promisedthen, we say, he has gained place by one pretence, and seeks to keep it by another. Why, we ask, should he be preferred to Lord Melbourne, if it be Whiggery that he pretends to? why not have the original, in place of the counterfeit ?

Let us now appeal to the high honour and proud honesty of the British people. You have, to a great extent, the power of governing yourselves in your own hands; on you, therefore, will fall the blame or praise of the result. You have expressed your opinion-you have chosen your representatives :—as they act, so will you be judged. Whether this result be for good or evil, you must bear it; but, although this be the case, if it should happen to be ill, let it not be thought that you intended to countenance any flagrant breach of common honesty. You may have been unwise in your selection of counsellors-but let it not be thought that you were dishonest also. Dishonest, we say, because there would be dishonesty in sending men to Parliament deliberately intending that they should sanction knavery, and co-operate in the degrading task of supporting an apostate, deceitful, and selfish politician. It is said by those who speak well of us, that we are a moral nation let us prove ourselves deserving the eulogy, and read a useful lesson to politicians of doubtful morality, by branding, as it deserves to be branded, the shuffling knavery of Sir Robert Peel. J. A. R.

Or the lost friends that have the most deeply interested my feelings in my solitary journey through life, I have a dim and melancholy pleasure in recalling my first impressions and earliest sentiment. I strive to revive the look, the attitude, the tone of voice, the individualized image, as it was seen in that peculiar aspect of the human physiognomy which can be beheld but twice-first, when we see the living man, and again, when we gaze upon the death-fixed, marble features of the recent corpse. I have rarely met with any individual even of the other sex, who, at first sight, made altogether a more favourable impression upon me, than Mr James Charles Frankland; yet I rather pique myself on not being very impressible by outward shows and signs; nor easily caught by either man or

woman.

CRABBE.

I can well remember that we first met in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre, about the middle of a season rendered memorable by the manage. ment of Lord Byron. From the period when Johnson and Burke, Topham Beauclerk and Reynolds, went to "the first nights" of Goldsmith's comedies, the play-house had not been so attractive to a certain order of literary loungers, as in this year, when the presence of Byron and his friends, drew together, almost every night, crowds of hangers-on, young templars, coffee. house critics, and fledging poets "about town." At the head of a rather numerous circle of this well-understood, but not very describable, fluctuating body, was Frankland; "among them, but not of them"-already a brilliant name in their order, and the main link which connected its youth of promise with the higher literary gra.

dation of the Hunts, and Hazlitts, and Lambs. Frankland was also, at the same time, honourably known to the stars of the Byron box, who shone a nightly constellation, and the sun of the lesser lights that now occupied the critical bench of the pit, upon the first and last representation of Jack Greene's RUNEMEDE, or FAIR ROSAMOND, (I really forget which,) a tragedy. To the dra matist, who was fluttering, in a dreadful state of nervous excitement, between pit, gallery, and boxes, I owed the honour of my introduction to the distinguished young barrister, who remained surrounded during the whole evening by a crowd of juvenile idolators, watching his every look and tone, and picking up the crumbs of wit and criticism that fell from his table, to be doled out for the rest of their lives. Without a particle of arrogance in his manner, which, though highly polished, was manly and simple, I could perceive that Frankland was somewhat disdainful of the flock of worshippers, who, in the genius, eloquence, and acquirements of the man who illustrated their class, foresaw a future Burke, Erskine, or Brougham; and, beyond all doubt, if not an entire and perfect Chancellor, a very eminent statesman" Unless his politics prove a bar to his advancement," whispered a fellowcraft, and one of his admirers. "Frankland is thoroughly liberal-a speculative Republican at the least." "No insurmountable obstruction that, if one may judge of his profession by past experience," I returned. I presume my remark was overheard; for my new acquaintance turned round and honoured me with a scrutinizing and sharp glance.

"The only doubt at one time was, whether literature or politics were to engross all of the man that law will spare-but politics have fairly turned the scale :-you have read that famous series of papers in the Chronicle under the signature Philo Junius ?-Well-but mum-an Under-Secretary was employed by Castlereagh to fish out the writer." Perhaps this was also heard; and I had smiled in such a sort, as to irritate the sensitive pride of Frankland, who turned to us abruptly, saying, "Am I not a fortunate man, Mr Taylor, surrounded as I am by a phalanx of young friends, who speak, write, flatter, nay, almost lie me into fame. I must, however, do the Treasury the bare justice to say, that, if it has ever done me the honour to put a price upon my head, I am still ignorant of its benevolent intentions. I am afraid his Majesty's Government has become singularly indifferent to the effusions of Aristides, Publicola, Vetus, and all the rest of us. A single vexatious motion in the House by Joseph Hume-the mute eloquence of a table of figures-a slap at sinecures and pensions affects them more at this time than would all the philippics of Demosthenes. But to your duty, gentlemen. I foresee Fair Rosamond's trial is to be short and sharp-the audience is about to play Queen Eleanor with her: how goes it in the rare old ballad

"With that she dashed her on the lips,
So dyed double red-

Hard was the hand that dealt the blow,

Soft were the lips that bled."

Our prescribed duty was to applaud, right or wrong, and without rhyme or reason, the tragedy which Frankland had unhesitatingly and sternly condemned and endeavoured to stifle in the birth, though kindness for its author had brought him from his chambers to sit out the unhappy play, and countenance the more unhappy writer. It had been represented from reasons more creditable to the good-nature, than the judgment or critical taste of the noble manager; who, during the third act, seeing the deep damnation inevitable, was among the first of the audience visibly to give way to the overwhelming sense of ridicule. This was not Frankland's style of backing his friends. A sudden compression of the lips, and knitting of the brow, marked his quick feeling of indig nation, as the curtain fell amidst the open laughter of the amateur managers and the critics, and the yet smaller creatures that fluttered around them, and of those throughout the house who caught their tone from that Pandora's box. The unfortunate author, a young man of weak character and amiable feeling, was so overpowered by his disgrace, as actually to weep behind Frankland's shoulder, while he whispered regret at not following his counsels and suppressing the uulucky play.

A single trait revealed to me much of the inner character of my new acquaintance, as a single lightning-flash will momentarily disclose the depths of a ravine which the sun's rays can never penetrate. A message was brought by one of the volunteer gentlemen ever in waiting upon Byron, requesting Mr Frankland to come round to the Green Room, where his Lordship" was with Kean and the distinguished persons who had been induced to witness the play. There might be a touch of pride and caprice in the refusal; but, I believe, indignant generosity was the prevailing sentiment, when Mr Frankland briefly stated in excuse an engagement with Mr Greene. An amended summons came back-Lord Byron particularly requested to see Mr Greene also; and the discomfited poet would have sneaked along, had not the other held him, crying, "No, by heavens! you shan't, Jack.”—The woful tragedian, who, from their school-boy days, had never dreamed of resisting the impetuous resolution of his friend Frankland, at once submitted.

The engagement proved a tavern supper, into which I allowed myself to be for once seduced; so much had I been captivated by what I had seen of the young lawyer, and amused by his satellites.

Cordial and confidential as Frankland and I finally became, our friendship was of slow growth. A full quarter century makes a difference between man and man; and, though Frankland was a ripe man of his twenty-seven years, he was not one of those that "wear the heart upon the sleeve for daws to peck at." It was not until a much later period of our acquaintance, that he was so far thrown off the guard constantly main

tained by his sensitive pride, as once to tell me, in a tone of self-complacency it was impossible to misunderstand, that Byron, piqued by the indifference shewn to the flattering attentions of one so privileged and so prerogatived as his capricious Lordship, had complained to a common literary friend, that Frankland, whom he had known at Cambridge, was the only man, resting his claims in society upon genius and personal merit alone, who had ever repelled him. I almost sympathized in the pride of my young friend; for it was now a time when talents and merit demanded indemnity from the frequent accesses of temper, caprice, and arrogance of the poet, who never forgot the peer, and who lived in continual apprehension, lest others should, in the man of splendid genius, forget the disquieting circumstance of his accidental rank. I less liked the reported sneering addition" The young liberal, no doubt, fancies himself vastly independent; Frankland thinks it quite heroie to despise a Lord:-stop till he needs a silk gown, and becomes Tory Attorney-General in expectance." This was laughingly told me ; but I liked it not. The future author of Beppo and Don Juan, read men's vanities, selfishnesses, and besetting weaknesses, but too fluently; and, even when I could have pledged my soul's peace upon the integrity of Frankland, I was haunted by the insidious prophecy. There was this common resemblance between the struggling young lawyer and the idolized peer, that both had rashly appeared in nonage before the world as poets: but it went no farther; for Frankland had met with a reception that would infallibly have ruined any youth of feebler character or of moderate vanity. His rapidly-ripening judgment and fastidious taste soon perceived the worthlessness of his juvenile productions; and, at twenty-three, had it been possible to have swept into oblivion every poem printed for ten previous years, so as to have annihilated the remembrance of his early humiliation, which had now made a five years' "eternal blazon" in albums, poets' corners, and souvenirs, his pride would have received the sacrifice. Censure he could have endured. Laughed at, he could have laughed again, however scornfully; but the crude, inane criticism-the faint, and, still more, the fulsome praise-the vulgar indiscriminate compliments-the insufferable airs of the small dealers out of fame-the patronage of the drawing-rooms-disgusted and almost mad. dened him, in the reflection that the enthusiasm of the senseless boy had voluntarily subjected the man to such mortification. Before we became acquainted, he had outlived this second burning stage, and could even bear to laugh at, and rally himself upon those collateral absurdities in so many men's lives, a first love and a first volume. As he could not expel the poetical elements with which nature had so strongly imbued his mind, he had given them what he thought a nobler or a more manly direction; and I have sometimes wondered how a man so far above the ordinary social vanities, should have taken so much pleasure in the exercise of astonishing conversational

powers, and premeditated displays of eloquence. Oratory is, in one sense, as much an original gift of nature as the talent of personation, or the endowment of a fine voice; I mean in that sense in which George Whitfield, or some nameless preacher among the Ranters, was more a natural orator than Burke or Fox. To the intellect and fine and ductile imagination of Frankland, nature had superadded a power which art had highly cultivated and embellished, until his jealous sense of personal dignity, fastidious refinement, and disdainful temper, awakened the morbid apprehension of being mistaken for a spouter, a speechifier, a political charlatan; which came in place of his former impatient scorn of being known as the author of "those delightful morsels," Weeds and Wildflowers, and the Gems from the Antique. His horror at being celebrated as the author of that crack article in Colburn for May last, had given place to equal horror of being mistaken for a man seeking to obtrude himself on public notice, and to advance his fortunes by vulgar arts. Under this idea, he had withdrawn himself from the friendly clubs and debating or literary societies of his former associates; who perceived that, out of the courts, Mr Frankland would not henceforth seek to sway, by his persuasive eloquence, any assembly less distinguished than his Majesty's Faithful Commons. The Opposition benches were imagined the immediate goal of his ambition. And what a figure Frankland would make in Parliament! was the current language of his admiring associates; and Frankland had some intimations of the same kind, that were even stronger than those which had made him a poet and a contributor of "crack articles" to the Reviews and Magazines;-not that he over. estimated his own powers: his error lay, not in an overweening opinion of himself, but in the morbidly acute perception and scornful temper which led him to strip away the false pretensions, unveil the mean motives, and rate, at their very lowest value, the men who might become his rivals-those more seeming-fortunate men with whom he disdained to measure himself in intellectual stature, and who won their way either by truckling subservience, or by the sacrifice of that lofty feeling of independence and self-sustaining pride of integrity, which he held the noblest personal attributes of man. With what fiery indig nation and withering scorn, have I heard him denounce the trucklers and trimmers of the timethe paltry deserters of their early opinions-the compound knaves and fools, whom a mean and narrow view of immediate interests led into the betrayal of their true interests! Of such abject creatures, he said, his own profession, above all others, was ever fruitful: contemptible apostates, who bartered the bright jewel of fame, the proudest conquests of intellect, for, perhaps, some paltry place-pitiful traitors to mankind and themselves, who blazoned their infamy on coronets! A little more indulgence for others, and far more humility and self-distrust for himself, would have been wisdom in my untempted

friend.