dent to guide him; and, of necessity, derive from the experience of the past, now inapplicable, nothing but mischief and mistake.

It is suspected by many, that the Premier has a secret wish to return, if possible, to unrestricted issues of bank-notes; and would, if not withheld by others, readily give in to the fatal mistake of attempting either to return to the inconvertible Paper Currency, or to an issue of convertible notes of all denominations.* Nor can he be convinced that the first would now end in an immediate separation between the paper and specie, in their exchangeable value; and the other, (if it succeeded at all,) in a crisis, after the lapse of two or three years, like that of 1825-6. To the theory of money, and to the present alarming situation of the coun.. try as regards its currency, it is known that the eldest son of the Premier has paid considerable attention; nor have there been wanting whispers, that, between the father and the son, controversies on this ticklish subject are neither rare nor always satisfactory,-the better knowledge of Lord Howick not always availing against the eloquence and cooler head of the Minister.

Upon the whole, the probability is, that Earl Grey, great as his talents undoubtedly are, is not equal to the crisis in which he is called upon to act. There are certain periods in the histories of all nations, when genius of the very highest order is alone of use; and when a mediocrity of genius avails no more than the utter negation of it, with whatever virtue of intention it may be accompanied. That this is true of England at this momentous time, every symptom conspires to prove; and it is hardly possible to conceive of the present Ministry, that they possess energy and talent adequate to the exigencies that throng and thicken around them. It seems too certain that Earl Grey will go down to posterity, as one whose genius and courage were neither equal to his good intentions, nor to the perilous era in which he lived; and that he will partake in the application of that famous sentence of Tacitus upon Galba, "Omnium consensu capax Imperii, nisi imperasset.”

It has been prophesied by one whose opinions on these matters are not to be despised, that "the system will go to pieces, in the hands of the Whigs." There is certainly little, at present, to detract from the probability of the accomplishment of this somewhat startling prediction. We shall see. That "THE SYSTEM," in whose hands soever it may be, must, ere long, "go to pieces," if it be not adroitly taken to pieces, is now past a doubt.

The high idea we entertain of Lord Grey's understanding, will not allow us to believe, for one moment, that there can be any foundation for the whisper alluded to by our Contributor, that his Lordship "would readily give in to the fatal mistake of attempting to return to an inconvertible Paper Currency." That Lord Grey may be favourable to Free Trade in Banking, and to the issue of Convertible Notes by large and wealthy joint-stock Banks in London and throughout the kingdom, on the system which has been so eminently successful in Scotland, we can well believe; and it gives us great pleasure to hear that there is a whisper to that effect.

E. T. M.

LORDLING LEGISLATORS.

"These be thy gods, O Israel !"

""Tis a most provoking thing," cried the Countess of Blazon to her cousin, the Dean of Killroghery, as they sat together at the dessert-table the other day, (her Noble Earl nodding cozily in his arm-chair by the fireside,)" that, in spite of all my labours, I cannot train that boy of mine into any thing like political distinction! He had a tutor to run after him in his go-cart, was six years at Eton, two at Christ Church. For the last three centuries, our family have held a prominent place in the legislation of the country, and I shall be miserable if De Dunceanville does not make a figure!"

"A figure of fun!" growled the lethargic Earl.

"I have done every thing that could be done on my part," continued the Countess, still addressing her Very Reverend kinsman, "to raise him into notice. After observing how other young men of his caste are smuggled behind the scenes, and pushed upon the stage of public life, I have left no stone unturned to bring poor Augustus forward."

"Rolling stones gather no moss," grumbled the Earl.

"I am well aware that Lord De Dunceanville's education was most elaborately superintended," observed the Dean, finding reply inevitable ; "but though we hold it a maxim, that education makes the man, I fancy something else is necessary to make the public man.”

"Of course,-quackery; nor have I neglected it. From the time he was fifteen, I always took care to announce in the papers, (among the arrivals in town, or departures to Oxford,) Lord De Dunceanville, and his tutor, the Rev. Mr. Olius, from Blazon House, Privy Gardens, to Christ Church, Oxon."

"And that served a double purpose," said the Dean, reproachfully; "for the Rev. Mr. Olius, thus honoured by a squeak of the penny-trumpet of fame, is now wigged and benched among the Bishops."

"King's Benched, if he had his deserts," mumbled Somnus.

"No sooner had the boy quitted College," cried Lady Blazon, than I got him sent attaché to Paris, that he might learn French and dancing; and to Vienna, that he might study German and waltzing. At both courts, I can venture to assert, that he did honour to the British embassy. With six saddle-horses and an excellent cook, 'tis hard, indeed, if a young man does not command the respect of society."

"I thought," hesitated the Dean, "you were obliged to send for his Lordship home from Paris, on account of his carrying off an opera dancer."

"Carrying off!" muttered the father, "No; the poor girl carried herself off-drowned herself, one fine day, in the canal de l'Ourcq."

"And the French thought proper to make a fuss, because she happened to be their best dancer! Now, really, that adventure might have brought him forward," said the Countess, "for you have no notion what a scandal there was. It was made into a melo-drame at one of the theatres of the Boulevards."

"And yet did nothing for Lord De Dunceanville's reputation?" "Nothing. It cost me as much exertion of our family interest to get him a clerkship in the Foreign Office, as if his name had never been heard of."

"But why waste the family interest on such an object?" said the Dean, pensively. "De Dunceanville, heir to an Earldom, and eighty thousands per annum, appears to me very much out of place as an operative, on a salary of £75 per annum, paid quarterly."

"He will never appear in place, without some such probation." "And what does my son and heir want with a place?" grumbled the Earl.

"Nothing with, but a great deal from one. Notice in the Red Book, the Foreign Almanacks, the Entrée at Courts, powers of franking overweight letters; besides patronage for all the old servants of all his old friends. Just now, for instance, I want our superannuated page made porter at Chelsea College; yet, you see, with all your Earldom, and £80,000 a-year, you cannot get it done; you have no patronage to give away in return."

"I find my young friend is a Fellow of the Antiquarian, Geological, Horticultural, Phrenological, and Zoological Societies," said the Dean, in a pacifying tone.

"Yes. It seems that no name will go down in the present age, without a collar of S.S. tacked to it. A fascinating young nobleman always begins his career as F. A. S. De Dunceanville often figures in the Transactions of the Learned Bodies as Vice-President."

("Vice-President," growled the father.)

"Sends Patagonian Gooseberries to the Horticultural Exhibitions, and presents Monomotatia Guinea-pigs, or a specimen of the Solitary Whistle-Bird, to the Zoological Gardens," continued the mother; "the Right Honourable Lord De Dunceanville is hung up on several cages." ("The Right Honourable Lord De Dunceanville hung up!" ejaculated the Earl.)

"I have lately had two or three very sweet little things introduced into the Court Magazine under his name," sighed Lady Blazon.

"I understand," observed the Very Reverend, "that two or three very sweet little things pass under his name; and his Lordship is a contributor, I fancy, to the fashionable Annuals."

“ Cela va sans dire! Almost all the present ministry were his fellowwriters in The Midsummer's Wreath:' and 'tis very strange, they have done nothing for him. Poor fellow!"

"The blockhead indited a Sonnet to a Dog wagging its tail to its Shadow," chuckled the old Earl," which the editor magnified into 'A Study from Natural History, by the Right Hon. Lord De Dunceanville.'” "I beg to observe," said the Countess, with indignation, " that my son is well known as an author of Memoirs; of Historical Memoirs, my Lord Blazon!"

"Of what?" "MEMOIRS." "Of whom?"

"Alfred the Great."

"Hurlothrumbo the Great! They were written forty times over before the boy was breeched."

"So much the better! He was the less likely to fall into error; and even that impartial periodical, the Literary Gazette, asserts De Dunceanville's book to be one of the most able works of the day!"

"Abomin-able, I make no doubt."

My young friend has manifestly achieved a place in the literature of the country," said the Dean, maliciously. "His portrait is stuck up in the windows of all the circulating libraries."

"And yet, I do assure you, he does not get on as he ought, or where he ought. In Downing Street, they never mention him, his name is never heard;' and we all know that Lord C. was a Lord of the Admiralty, and Lord F. of the Treasury, five years nearer to their nursery than poor dear De Dunceanville. Could I but have calculated when he made his debut in public life, how things were likely to turn out!”

"Things! "Twas only the Tories that turned out," said Lord Bla

zon.

"I might have made a more judicious choice of principles for him. 'Twas all my fault. Heaven knows, poor fellow! he had none of his own!"

"You amaze me, my dear Lady Blazon," cried the Dean, "I fancied that De Dunceanville was with the Whigs."

"And so he is; and, pray, what chance has a young man of attracting notice who is always with Ministers? It is your Opposition Men (no matter whether Whig or Tory) who monopolize the attention of society; wranglers who pull protocols to pieces, quire by quire; dispute the Treasury estimates, cypher by cypher; oppose every Government motion; meet the Civil List with quotations from Juvenal; and blow up the Secretary-at-War with Vattel, Machiavel, or Lord Bolingbroke. Poor De Dunceanville has no chance of the kind: Obliged to waste his eloquence in apologies and deprecation; assuring the Honourable House, that his Honourable Friend of the Home Department is not at present prepared with documents to refute the very learned, very elaborate, but very insidious statements made by the Honourable Gentleman recently upon his legs.'

"Pre

"Provoking enough!" said the Dean, in a hypocritical voice. destined to say nothing that is likely to be listened to; and knowing that not even what the press says for him is likely to be read! Poor fellow!"

"Now, if I had but made him a Conservative! Think by what bursts of eloquence he might have immortalized himself! I have two capital Church and State tirades against innovations on Ecclesiastical property lying in my desk."

Why can't the Bishop, who wrote them, speak them himself?" growled the Earl. "I suppose his Lordship is waiting to be cross-examined by a Hierarchical Committee."

"For the life and soul of me, I cannot tell how to advise you," said the Dean. "If your son be not too deeply pledged to his party, let him work his way round by degrees. He might even form a third, or moderative party in the House."

"A mule! half Whig half Tory,-hot and obstinate! A monster— a hybrid! a thing despised of gods and men!" ejaculated the old gentleman.

"Or, why not follow the canvassing system, and be a Tory to Tories, a Whig to Whigs; or a Moderate Whig;' or Philosophical Conservative?'

"A flying-fish!" muttered the Earl; "now soaring after gnats, now diving after grubs,-light as air,—yet leaden as a plummet!"

"I am afraid the march of humbug,-in that direction,-has been cut short. The land of Penny Magazines has been couched for its cataract."

"I recollect the time," replied the Countess, in a pensive tone," when, for a man of De Dunceanville's rank, to have written a book, even if

(like the quondam Earl of Pembroke's) a book of farriery, was to have placed himself on a pedestal for life; and now, if a nobleman were to discover a planet, it would be no better than any other planet!"

66

Except in the Literary Gazette; of which it would be the fixed star!"

"Only consider, Dean, what that poor dear boy goes through in the service of the country! Obliged to be in Downing Street every morning at twelve, rain or shine, (renouncing his natural rest, and swallowing his muffins whole, at the risk of dyspepsia !) compelled to remain there seeing despatches copied,-franking letters,-receiving parcels of French perfumery or gloves from the Paris bag, and distributing them to the various ministerial ladies to whom they are addressed,-giving commissions to the different couriers, and scribbling his pretty verses on filthy government stationery! Actually deprived of half his ride in the park, two days out of seven, and all for the chance of being one day or other a paltry Under-Secretary of State.' "

"What self-devotion!"

"His health will not stand it much longer. He is constantly obliged to ask leave of absence and run down to Brighton. De Dunceanville is dreadfully consumptive."

("Of fish, soup, and patties !" mumbled the Earl.)

"I have half a mind he should turn Radical!" said the Countess. "A Radical Lord would be a novelty, and create a sensation !"

"Il y avoit une fois un Comte de Mirabeau," said the Dean, drily. "And then he would be sure to remain in opposition. No chance, at all events, of the Rads burrowing their way to the Treasury Bench!" "Ne gagez pas !" as Agnes says, cried the Dean. "The age progresses! Two years ago Great Britain congratulated herself on having a Radical Sovereign. I should never be surprised to find small change for one jingling in the National purse."

"That might at last enable us to pay twenty shillings in the pound," cried the Earl, waking up.

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My dear Blazon," said the Countess, in a silencing voice, "be so obliging as to remember that we are not talking of politics-only of LORDLING LEGISLATORS."

A SOLDIER'S RECOLLECTIONS.

A GHOST STORY.

"Avaunt, and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless."

SHAKSPEARE,

Ir was shortly after the capture of the island of Guadaloupe from the French, in the year 180-, that my tour of duty placed me in command of a subaltern's guard of Fort Matilda, where a division of the prisoners of war was then confined. I remember the guard mounting of that morning. Never was there collected a more motley group than that which, under my command, marched on the parade ground. The officer, an Irishman; the serjeant, from the York Rangers, of the same nation; half-a-dozen borderers from the 25th; as many Germans from the 5th