sacrificed to the desperate struggle of an unpopular and rapidly declining faction?

We have shown the mode in which all parties treated the household arrangements of Anne. It cannot be forgotten that she was married and of mature years when she ascended the throne. No ministry attempted to force into, or out of, the household of Charlotte, their friends or their enemies. She had the same Mistress of the Robes from 1761 to 1793; her second Mistress of the Robes, the Marchioness of Bath, held her office till 1808.* Her Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Aylesbury, appointed in 1780, continued in his office till 1792, when he was succeeded by the Earl of Morton, who held it till 1808.* Charles Fitzroy, Esq., appointed her Vice Chamberlain in 1768, held it to 1782. The Honourable Stephen Digby held it from 1782 to 1792; and his successor, William Price, Esq., held it from 1792 to 1808.* With the ladies of her household no ministry were silly enough to interfere. The household of Queen Adelaide was composed almost exclusively of persons opposed to the Whig administration, which however never attempted to remove them.

It is unnecessary to adduce further proofs of the unprecedented character of the Peel proposition. The honourable baronet has himself admitted that it was unprecedented. "Sir, the policy of these things depends not upon precedent not upon what has been done in former times-it mainly depends upon a consideration of the present crisis." This was his language in the late debate; and it scarcely leaves a doubt that the course which he proposed to his sovereign, and for which he could not find a precedent, was, even in his own estimation, "contrary to usage."

At this point we should, according to our original design, close this paper; but there are a few other topics so closely connected with this extraordinary proceeding, that we cannot dismiss the subject without referring to them.

The Conservative newspapers complain that Sir Robert Peel has been calumniated by those, who charge him with having demanded the power and intimated the intention to remove all the ladies of the household. This was the impression left on the Queen's mind as to the nature of his proposal, In consequence of some observations which fell from Lord Melbourne in the debate of Tuesday, the 14th ult., a cry has been raised about this as an "erroneous impression." On that occasion Lord Melbourne, after stating that her Majesty had informed him of the nature of her interviews with Sir Robert Peel, said that she also informed him that

"The right honourable baronet made a proposal that he should have the power of dismissing the ladies of her Majesty's household, not stating to what extent he would exercise that power-not stating how many, or whom, it was his intention to propose to remove — but asking the power of dismissing the ladies of the household, and leaving unquestionably upon her Majesty's mind a very strong impression that it was intended to employ that power to a very great extent-to such an extent, certainly, as to remove all the ladies of the bedchamber, as well as some of those filling an inferior situation in the household. Such, my Lords, was the impression on her Majesty's mind-an impression which, from what has since transpired, is evidently erroneous. No doubt such an impression was a mistaken one. The right honourable baronet has distinctly stated that he had no such intention, and there cannot be the slightest doubt upon the point."

We confess that we do not understand how Lord Melbourne leaped to the conclusion that the impression on her Majesty's mind was erroneous. Is it merely because Sir Robert Peel said, that on discussing the subject

We specify 1808 merely to show that the ministry of 1806 did not remove them. How much longer they held those offices we have not at this moment, the means of determining. But it is immaterial to the present subject.

with his friends he had intimated that he would propose no change with respect to those below the rank of lady of the bedchamber, and that it would not be necessary to remove all the ladies of the bedchamber, as some were unobjectionable, "from the total absence of party or political connection?" Such might have been his views as to what ladies it would be expedient, in the first instance, to remove; but if he did not desire the power of removing all, why did he not name those whom he considered objectionable, and ask the Queen to dismiss them? That would have been a plain, straightforward mode of proceeding, and would have removed all doubts, and all impediments to the secure enjoyment of office. But he demanded the power of dismissing all, without particularising any; and there is nothing in his letter to show that he had given her any well grounded reasons to expect that he would not exercise it, if necessary, to the fullest extent. Let us examine the letter, recollecting that it was written after the negotiations had terminated, and designed more as a justification of himself with his party and the public, than as an explanation of his views to his sovereign. In this document he says, —

"In the interview with which your Majesty honoured Sir Robert Peel yesterday morn ing, after he had submitted to your Majesty the names of those whom he proposed to recommend to your Majesty for the principal executive appointments, he mentioned to your Majesty his earnest wish to be enabled, with your Majesty's sanction, so to constitute your Majesty's household that your Majesty's confidential servants might have the advantage of a public demonstration of your Majesty's full support and confidence, and that at the same time, as far as possible consistently with that demonstration, each individual appointment in the household should be entirely acceptable to your Majesty's personal feelings.

"On your Majesty's expressing a desire that the Earl of Liverpool should hold an office in the household, Sir Robert Peel requested your Majesty's permission at once to offer to Lord Liverpool the office of Lord Steward, or any other which he might prefer.

"Sir Robert Peel then observed, that he should have every wish to apply a similar principle to the chief appointments which are filled by the ladies of your Majesty's household, upon which your Majesty was pleased to remark, that you must reserve the whole of those appointments, and that it was your Majesty's pleasure that the whole should continue as at present, without any change."

No one can read this without feeling convinced that the demand was to remove all whom he should deem it necessary to remove," consistently with that demonstration," and to bring all the ladies under the same principle as the Lord Steward of the Household. There is no limitation of the demand to the ladies of the bedchamber. When Sir Robert Peel wrote this after the rupture of the negotiation, may we not conclude that he said at least as much, if not more, when flushed with success, and expecting only submission?

Besides, is it not manifest that Sir Robert Peel in demanding this right of dismissing the four or five ladies, whom he alleges to have been objectionable to him, in fact asserted the right to dismiss any ladies that might at any time become objectionable to him—a right which in the course of time might, and in all human probability would, have included the whole household? Is it not a mere verbal equivocation to say, that he stipulated only for a limited power, when that power was to be exercised without any restriction, except such as he might himself think proper to put upon it? If the Queen had allowed him to dismiss any ladies upon grounds to which she did not assent, would not that have been in reality to surrender the whole household into his hands? If he were invested with the power to dismiss in one instance, that power could not be denied to him in other instances, the reasons being similar; so that instead of being a power with limitations, it was actually an unlimited power. Indeed, whatever contemptible evasion of his real object Sir Robert Peel may now think proper to resort to, the Duke of Wellington, with a candour honourable to his character, admitted

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that object in full in his speech of explanation. "I confess," said his Grace, "that I do not think that any set of men could undertake the government of the country, unless they possessed universal influence and control over the whole household." There is the fact stated as clearly as it can be put into words. No, no, Joseph Surface, there was no " erroneous impression" in the case. The Conservatives have, according to ancient custom, invoked the aid of But what can the constitution have the constitution on this trying occasion. to do with the composition of the Queen's household more than with the composition of her medicine, or the composition of her toilette? There is not a nobleman in the kingdom who cannot appoint his own treasurers, chamberlains, huntsmen, and tradesmen. The system of interfering with the arrangements of the royal household was commenced barely for the purpose of conferring so much additional patronage on the minister, at a period when corruption was deemed necessary, nay constitutionally essential, to carrying on the business of the government. It was not the constitution which called on him to invade the sanctuary of royalty, and post his myrmi dons at its portals, but his and their insatiable appetite for plunder. We believe that the result has not been very beneficial to the country. It made the sovereign the mere puppet of the party, who got him into their toils, and who exhibited him in their vanguard when attacking the rights of their countrymen, in the same manner as wily foes have ever done, when they have captured the monarch of a people too foolishly loyal, and made him the instrument of their subjugation. Of William III. we are disposed to say little. Anne was the mere tool of the parties who got her into their leading strings. The two first Georges were very like little children in the nursing arms of the Whigs, looking on themselves as somehow entitled to get pap and playthings from their protectors, and bound in turn to give the sanction of their names to every scheme of exaction. The country would have fared better than it has done, had the two last Georges consulted the wishes of the people more frequently than they did those of the narrow-minded coteries by which they were encircled. The power of the minister to beset the sovereign with his creatures is certainly unwarranted by any recognised principle of the constitution. The sovereign should be at liberty to select his friends from all parties of the state to consult men of every political complexion - and to be as unshackled and as free in to know and be known to all every respect as any of his subjects. "The wisdom of our ancestors" never contemplated that the monarch should know and care as little about the wants and wishes of his people as he did about those of the inhabitants of the that he should be the mere imbecile toy of a coterie, and that his brain should not shelter an idea not sanctioned by the impress of ministerial authority. Such, however, is the modern "constitutional" doctrine. The Duke of Wellington in the late debate exposed the danger of allowing the "He had known the Queen to have "political conversation with her ladies." inconvenience of an anomalous influence of this kind exercised, not by ladies such as those in question, BUT IN THE WAY OF SIMPLE CONVERSATION."

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A word to the wise!!!

We do sincerely hope that the people will now exert themselves in this cause, which is really their own, and that they will endeavour to restore the ancient authority of the sovereign over the patronage of the householdor at least to preserve what remains of it. If they once yield up their young and artless Queen a close prisoner to the Conservative faction, they will speedily have cause to repent of their folly.

"PRINCESS SCHEHERAZADE! if you are not asleep tell us that story." -Lest our readers should suppose from the gravity of our previous pages that we are in the condition of the Arabian princess, we deem it incumbent on us to make an attempt to amuse them. "J'apprends d'etre vif," said the German detected in the act of leaping over his chair. Perhaps our attempt at liveliness may be voted of the same description.

In these days when, in England, the lyrical drama supersedes what is called the legitimate theatre, notwithstanding the efforts of many of our eminent writers to support it, the contest between the classic and romantie schools goes on the same as ever on the Continent. Gries and Schlegel, in Germany, have produced beautiful and entertaining translations from the Spanish poets, opening up a new mine of dramatic literature never heretofore explored; and from having seen in a contemporary journal of established reputation the doubt expressed of a possibility of rendering justice in English measures to the Spanish originals after the manner of the German translators, we are stimulated to make the attempt.

The principle of the romantic literature, be it remarked, is that of individuality, and the depicting of man's religious opinions, or internal springs and motives of action.

In the classic literature, on the contrary, the poet sees man in his external acts only, and considers his virtue and vices in the abstract; for which reason the protagonist wants individuality to distinguish him from other men governed by a certain and determinate passion. The Avare, Misanthrope, and Tartuffe of the classic theatre, are thus mere avarice, misanthropy, and hypocrisy personified. As the classic poet, in his fables, treats solely of general characters, he always proposes to himself some fixed moral end; whilst the romantic, looking upon this as an accessary, and only pretending to the formation and picture of individual characters, the morality, more or less vague, which he deduces from his inventions, must result from the single acts of his personages. The metaphysics of the pas sions and the long monologues, are, on this account, indispensable; for without them the poet can neither depict the internal sentiments of the soul, nor graduate the imperceptible march of those movements which, at every step, modify the individual man. In the classic, where it is not needed to mark the essential difference between the same passion applied to distinct persons, the spectator foresees the catastrophe, and does not exact great emotions, nor any profoundly internal combat, until the dénouement of the piece, when his expectations are regularly verified by some explosion of passion: Orosmane, for example, in Voltaire's "Zaire," is a jealous man, or, rather, a personification of jealousy, reduced in its expression to the external acts> by which it manifests itself in the generality of mankind. Thus he imparts none of those intimate secrets of the conscience, which are only communicated to the public by supposing the protagonist to converse with himself. A portrait executed under these principles is easily reduced to the rules of the unities. But would it succeed as well were we to take Calderon's "Tetrarch of Jerusalem," and confine that beautiful romantic creation within the

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limits of a classic tragedy? The result would be to present a Mariamne as cold and insipid as the French heroine."

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For Orosmane to suspect the fidelity of his mistress it is necessary that she inspire distrust by actions, innocent, it is true, but certainly equivocal, and which she might have avoided. Zara, without ceasing to be Zara, might have tranquillised her lover; whilst Mariamne, without ceasing to be a woman, charming, virtuous, and beloved, could not have freed herself from the jealousy of her spouse. Zara gives a motive for the suspicion of Orosmane, and by saying a single word could have put an end to it. Mariamne, on the contrary, is innocent, not only in the eyes of the spectator, but in those of Herod himself; and the occasion of his jealousy need not be sought without himself, for it lives within his soul, circulates through his veins, and is the prop of all that constitutes his moral existence. To decide the catastrophe in this tragedy, it is unnecessary that Mariamne appear criminal in the eyes of her husband; it is enough, for this purpose, that she is a woman, that she is beautiful, and that no one can behold her without loving, or suspect for a moment that she could be capable of inconstancy. There should be every difference between the expression of Orosmane and the Tetrarch's respective sentiments. The one, all classic, represents the jealous affections as inherent passions in the human breast, expressing them by actions which, in similar situations, all men would commit. The other concentrates them within his soul, and portrays the conflicting torments and combats, not as pertaining to the human species, but to a specific individual of it. All jealous men recognise themselves in Orosmane. The Tetrarch alone can feel, act, and think like the Tetrarch.

In perusing the works of these old dramatists we cannot help seeing that their merit does not solely consist in making good verses, as some pretend, but in being really excellent poets, notwithstanding their defects. Who, for instance, can compete with Lope in fertility and invention? Who can deny to Calderon the foremost rank in the art of combining his plans, and directing and making the most of his situations, in the perfection of his narratives, and in the mode of presenting his ideas so eminently poetical? Who can refuse to admire in Tirso the harmonious fulness of the rhymes, the grace of the language, and the humour that abounds in his dramatic works? And what shall we say of the ingenious Moreto, the first poet who placed on the scene the true comedy of character, and drew it with as much perfection as the great Moliere, of Guillen de Castro, Tarrega, Aguilar, Ruiz de Alarcon, Belmonte, Montalvan, Velez de Guevara, Diamante, Solis, Roxas, and Moratin? The collection now published is a proof of this.*

Among the varied spectacles which the gorgeous procession of Calderon's theatre presents we shall select one, called " Life, a Dream;" not that it is remarkable for a greater portion of the mystic gloom which is regarded as the peculiar feature of his muse, or that it contains any of those "deepest wells of passion and of thought" which we expect in the poem of a great dramatist gifted with lofty powers of fancy and intellect, but simply because the idea of placing a modern Pyrrho on the stage is novel and highly dramatic, and the moral lesson drawn from it is not distorted by any of those monstrous exhibitions so frequently displayed in his other religious dramas. This piece has been acted upon some of the German stages, and affords great scope for the powers of an actor. In presenting a few extracts, we shall endeavour to follow the metrical forms and hyperbolical flights of the original. Every reader of Shakspeare must recognise its resem*Senior, Pall Mall, 1839.

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