MR. HUME, AND HIS WOULD-BE BURKERS.

We have so much regard for the Whigs as to be sorry for the part they are still acting towards Mr. Hume. They are doing him no harm; but they are injuring themselves to an extent of which they are probably not aware. It is impossible to believe that Lord Grey, whose outward rank is not of a higher stamp than his innate nobility, or that such a master spirit as Lord Brougham, or so worthy a man as Lord Althorp, would direct or encourage the petty attacks, evincing a sort of small malice below the dignity of mankind, which are made on Mr. Hume from every quarter where party-whig colours are hoisted. It is the small fry of the party; the paltry fellows who will desert the Whigs the instant they lose possession of power, that pour their vixen spite on the Man of the People.

Of the great Whigs, not one has been guilty of an attack on Mr. Hume, excepting le petit Russell, if the exception is worth making. But there is a regular attempt to worry him among the Messans* of the party, led on by the great mastiff of the Times. The deep baying of the mastiff is no sooner heard, than every cur imitates the note as well as his small pipe will permit; and there follows a whole concert of "harsh discords and unpleasing sharps." Some of the most ill-conditioned of these whelps, not content with barking, show their rows of small ivories, and threaten to bite. Contemptible as the animals are, there may be danger here. The bite of a lady's lap-dog, if little Pug is in a rabid state, may cause death. A Mr. Hume is not a man whom the people of Scotland, England, or Ireland, can at present spare.

Seriously, nothing can be more silly than these appeals to the sword, which we see so often threatened by men who, whatever their natural character may be, should remember that they are sent to Parliament to enact the part of grave senators. It is not unnatural for men to approach the borders of rudeness, in the warmth of a keen debate. But surely the authority of the Speaker, resolutely exerted, and the feeling of the House, should be sufficient protection from such rudeness. There ought to be a regular understanding that nothing said aloud in Parliament, is to be resented by the aggrieved party out of Parliament. We think it should also be understood that men of advanced age, men of high official situation, and, certainly no less, men whom the people delight to honour, should not be expected to answer appeals to a trial of courage or marksmanship. There should be something like equality in what each party risks in a duel, where there is no deadly wrong in the case. What comparison is there in the value of the lives of an ignorant Irish gentleman bogtrotter, and Daniel O'Connell? What right has a mere "gentleman of the army" to suppose that his life (valued, perhaps, at five or six shillings a day) is a fair set-off against Mr. Hume's or even Lord Althorp's? Suppose Captain O'Trigger or Colo.. nel Fireball are gazetted as having " gone to their own place," what is the mighty matter? Of the affliction of near connexions, at the loss of, perhaps, an amiable relative, we will not speak slightly; still less of the bereavement of widows and children. Consideration for these losses is common to both the patriots' and the officers' side of the question. But apart from these very serious considerations, common to both parties,

Something between the turnspit and the lurcher.

VOL. III-NO. XIII.

Vide Jamieson..

H

what comparison is there between the life of a respectable, gentlemanly officer in the army, and Mr. Hume's? If the officer fall, who will lament but his own relations and friends? But Mr. Hume's death would cause a nation to mourn.

To all invitations to expose his valuable life, on account of any thing said or done in relation to public business, we trust Mr. Hume will return an unhesitating negative. He may do so without incurring the smallest suspicion of a want of that very commonplace quality, personal courage, sufficient in degree to enable a man to fight when he thinks he can't help it. Had we as good a reason for wishing to preserve our poor life, we should answer every challenge with," My good Sir, your recklessness of your life, shows the value you put upon it; and, as to that, you are the best judge. But I have undertaken a task, great in my own eyes, and important in those of my countrymen. From that duty I will not be diverted. If you preserve your anger so long, come to me when my task is accomplished, and I shall then give you the satisfaction you re quire, in your turn with several others, who are also waiting. Till then, adieu."

In future, we hope it will be considered that Mr. Hume, like Mr. O'CONNELL, Mr. CHARLES GRANT, and others, is not a fighting man. Any person who attempts to bully these men, or others who may reasonably be supposed not likely to accept a challenge, will expose his own courage to serious questioning. It will be said that he knows whom to bully. No man who knows himself to be brave, will ever be solicitous about his reputation for bravery. He will never imagine that his courage can be suspected, except on such an occasion as his attempting to over-crow a man of known peaceful dispositions. If one of true courage be ever betrayed into a sally of ill-temper against such a man, he will shrink into himself with shame at the thought of having given occasion to his being regarded as a mere empty vapourer, who could insult a clergyman or a

woman.

Notwitstanding all the attacks made upon him so unceasingly since the Elections commenced, Mr. Hume stands higher in the esteem and affections of his countrymen than ever. If there is a single public man, in whose integrity the people have the most undoubting confidence, JOSEPH HUME is that man. His public virtue has stood a severe trial. He has dared to act towards the Lord Grey's originally almost idolized Administration, the same honest, and useful part which he acted towards the detested administrations of the Duke of Wellington and his Tory predecessors. He has not made a single motion, he has not given a single yote, which is not in strict accordance with his former conduct; with that conduct which has made him regarded as the People's best friend. But he has presumed to think that a man who will pledge himself to nothing but to "support the present Ministry," is not the safest man for the People to choose as their representative; he has presumed to think that Sinecures are bad things, although filled up by Whigs instead of Tories; he has presumed to think that to suspend the liberties of Ireland, is not the way to pacify that misgoverned country; he is known to have the audacity to think that an army as large in time of peace as was required in time of war, is improper and extravagant ; and to have had the assurance of openly advocating short Parliaments, the Ballot, and other measures on which Ministers have not yet made up their minds. The people, it is shrewdly suspected, have notions upon those subjects very much like Mr. Hume's; and therefore Mr. Hume is likely

to be troublesome and dangerous, if the Ministry should choose to go but a little way, and that slowly, on the road of Reform. "He must be put down," is the cry, from Small Johnny downwards, through every trumpery fellow who, like Callum Beg, is ready to discharge his pistol or his pop-gun, or his paper pellets of the brain, at any man, however innocent and worthy, at whom his Chief has taken offence. And this felonious attempt these unscrupulous gillies, like the aforesaid little Celtic viper, take it upon them to do without orders from their master, "if they think it wad please him when done." A pretty estimate they seem to have formed of their Master's magnanimity! We hope-we believe they are mistaken; and that the attempt to destroy Mr. Hume's reputation is as little pleasing to Lords Grey, Brougham, and Althorp, as the shot which Callum discharged at Waverley was agreeable to the gallant Vich Ian Vohr. Yet we cannot forget that the honourable Highlander, on discovering the conduct of his servant, gave a very unequivocal proof of the light in which he viewed it; and we should like to see some similar, though less violent, demonstration on the part of the Premier and his noble colleagues.

The shots discharged at Mr. Hume, like that at Waverley, have proved without other effect than the blackening the faces of the skulking scoundrels who fired them, with their own powder.* If any man doubts this, let him call a meeting of the whole inhabitants of any one city, town, or village in Scotland or England, and give out the simple word "Hume,” and he will find that name call forth a shout which will make the welkin ring. There are other names which wont to call forth the enthusiastic plaudits of assembled multitudes, which now would excite but a faint and feeble cry of satisfaction, not unmingled with murmurs. There are newspapers which wont to be regarded as oracles, now publicly burnt by the very classes who were their most ardent disciples, "amidst mingled groans and hisses." These are not trifles. They are important signs of the times, and will not be disregarded by those who have been intrusted with the direction of public affairs, if they be not blind and destined to destruction.

Among Mr. Hume's traducers, we are sorry to find the Edinburgh Review. In the Article Sarrans' La Fayette, (No. CXII. of the Review, page 495,) after calling Mr. Hume, by insinuation, "An abstract Republican opinionist ;" the Reviewer proceeds to remark that, "A conversation in which Mr. Hume is reported to have told the late American Minister, Mr. Maclean, that in case he returned in two years' time, he would probably find us with a Congress and a President, has been of late frequently repeated. By many it was supposed that "The wish was father to the thought." This is, if not a fabrication of the Reviewer, at least a base attempt to give currency to a report which he thought likely to injure Mr. Hume with a portion of the British public. The report is entirely without foundation.

We are sorry to have occasion to mention the Edinburgh Review, so often, in terms the reverse of laudatory. That we do so, arises from no hostile feeling to the Review or its proprietors, the respectable House of Longman and Co., London. To its literary articles we willingly accord the high praise which they deserve. But the Review is the great political organ of the Whig party, whose worst measures it advocates in a style so like what we used to meet with in the Quarterly Review, when the Tories were in power, that we cannot, in justice to the People, whose cause we maintain, allow its political articles to pass without the occasional expression of our dissent and reprobation.

DEAR TAIT,

"SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!"

NEVER, surely, in the history of any country, was there a more curious passage than this. We are all at sixes and sevens. No man can, from any previous knowledge or data, guess the opinions of another. If he knows them one moment, he does not know them the next; for they are "Varying as the shade,

By the light quivering aspen made."

You meet a Republican; and he shakes his head at you, and quotes the tyrant's plea the stern necessity for despotic measures in Ireland. He will not tell you that the proposed law meets the case of emergency. It is enough that it is despotic; and it is therefore advisable. Despotic, now, is a word of every virtue. The next instant you meet an Independent; a man of no party, one sworn to no particular creed, disposed to make the best of every thing. You prepare yourself for palliation and middle-course propositions; but fire comes from his mouth. The Bill is atrocious; its authors stamped with infamy; its supporters traitors to the nation; he can make no compromises; keep no terms. The thing must be fought tooth and nail; it allows of no improvement ; the poison cannot be extracted; it must be quashed altogether. He has said as much in his speech against it. He has denied the case of necessity; and he has proved that, if it existed, the measure would not fasten on it. You part with him, pressing his hand with no common cordiality, and thanking the gods that there is one honest man in the council of the nation. The first thing you see, the next morning, is his name in a majority for some abominable clause of the Bill. The next time you see him, he volunteers an explanation of his vote, which, he says, "may seem odd to you." To me such things have long ceased to seem odd. I have supped full of inconsistencies. I never listen to explanations. I stand patiently till the voice has ceased, hearing no syllable of the rigmarole, and thinking of the excellent old uses of the stars in such cases. "Une raison, la plus belle du monde. On n'a plus qu'a commettre tous les crimes imaginable, tromper, voler, assassiner; et dire, pour excuse, qu'on y a été poussé par sa destinée." Much better this excuse, than any the murmur of which has been in my ears. They signify no more than the babbling of a brook, which denotes the set of the stream.

Never was there such chopping and changing about. One moment a man is in fear of his constituents, and raging against the Bill; the next he is in fear of the Coteries, and voting for some atrocious clause. He hedges, as the gamblers phrase it. Now he gives a vote for the borough of Guzzledown, and now for Brookes's. Never was there such a test as this vile Bill has proved. It has disengaged all that is false and feeble in every man's character. The action on the sycophancies has been immense. In proportion to the need of Ministers, has been the value of desertions; and many a mean wretch has taken this opportunity of going over, renouncing his professed radicalism, when he knew that his apostacy would be prized. At the clubs, we see the whole game played. A ministerialist of mark is seen with a whole fry of pseudo-radicals

about him.

The common talk of the professors of liberality is that of Truckler, in the following dialogue :

Truckler.-(Taking a pinch of snuff to steady his features)-Well,

this is a sad business-a most unfortunate thing this state of Ireland. Something must be done.

Holdfast. You mean to say that you are for the Bill.

Truckler. Certainly I am, for things cannot remain as they are; and it is a measure of grievous necessity.

Holdfast. The necessity is not proved. My seat on this chair might be intolerable; but that it no reason that I should jump out of the window. Admitting that we are in the frying-pan, a change for the fire is not advisable.

Truckler.-A despotism, if you choose to call it so, (and I don't mind names,) is better than anarchy; and I don't agree with you that these men are likely to abuse their powers.

Holdfast. Probably not; but the question is not whether they will abuse their powers, but whether the powers will be abused which they convey to agents, whose actions are out of their view and control. If these powers can now be granted, in the confidence that they will not be abused, why should they not be granted for ever in the same confidence? Your confidence is in Lord Grey,-my mistrust is in Captain Northerton. The Viceroy of Ireland calls the powers into activity, but he does not wield them.

Truckler. The worst Captain in Ireland is Captain Rock.

Holdfast.-May be so; but it is not shewn that this is the right way of handling him, or that it will handle him at all. It is only setting up one tyranny, with no reasonable prospect of its putting down another.

Truckler.--I am sick of hearing you talk of tyranny. We all know that tyranny is an evil.

Holdfast. And is that any reason why I should not prove that this will be a tyranny. We all know that poison is deadly; but you will not object to my proving that there is white lead in your wine. Because a thing is an admitted evil, may we not argue against calling it into action? Truckler. It is very monotonous.

If you were having your

Holdfast. We are not discussing a song. throat cut, what should you cry? Nay, tell me.

Truckler.-Nonsense!

Holdfast.-No; you would not call, "nonsense."

Truckler.-(Peevishly.) Well, Murder; and what then?

Holdfast.-Why, what should you think, if a fellow with a nightcap on his head, looked out of a window and coolly said, "What a monoto.. nous cry that fellow keeps up, disturbing the neighbourhood! Murder, murder, murder; nothing but murder. Why don't he say something else?" You have nothing else to say. Every one knows what murder is, that it is the foulest crime; and yet you can only repeat, that it is about to be committed on your body.

Truckler. Something must be done.

Holdfust.-Yes; that is the rondo: to that you come round. Something must be done; but should it be this thing?

Truckler.-You see the state of Ireland; and desperate cases require desperate remedies.

Holdfast. There is much that is shocking, lamentable, intolerable, in the state of Ireland; but nothing that is new in it; and there is nothing new in the remedy. It is the old unsuccessful treatment of the old unconquered disease, to the rigour; the Sangrado discipline; now hot water for the right ward, and bleeding for the left, now bleeding for the left ward, and hot water for the right.