petent of all the noodles, and the most venerated of the tribe of Nestors; that he is at once magnanimous and mean; profound and shallow; hypocritical and honest; noble and contemptible; all that he should be, all that he should not be.

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an honourable

Such, until the present time (of which Present Time, by the way, being regular readers of the public journals, we have no accurate idea, and can say nothing)—such has the Cabinet Minister too generally been. But occasionally it has been his fate to be seen in less extravagant lights, and less contradictory positions; he has been neither ridiculously praised, nor rancorously abused; but then he has been a nobody, and his name has died with him. The reporters in the gallery described him when he rose to speak, as member whose name we could not learn." If he carried on the affairs of government in profound quiet, he had no chance of being heard of for want of noise. The spirit of contradiction is apparent here also. So is it, in the case of the Cabinet Minister who, though an elevated and remarkable person before he attained official station, shrinks into common-place, and finds the ordinary level when the distinction that seemed so fitting has been secured. So is it likewise in his case, who, winning power by a lucky distribution of the cards, rather than by any skill whatever at the game, feels at once all the value of what he has won, and becomes a first-rate player; confounding, by his masterly tactics, his stores of intuitive knowledge, and superiority to the intoxicating charms that beset him, all who had cursed his good fortune as the sole quality that stood between them and possession.

The Cabinet Minister, surrounded by the beauty and lustre conferred by the confidence of the sovereign, is sometimes as the wasp enclosed in amber; and, sometimes, while lending to a sovereign's will the sanction of a high authority, and investing what is worthless with the luminous qualities of a great intellect, as the amber that encloses the grub.

There will always be Dogberries of all degrees, appointed to office simply because they are the "most desartless" men to be constables of the watch; and there will also be officers of state, who, however truly and impartially they may execute their high functions, must still be railed at as Lear rails at the elements, when he denounces them as "servile ministers." But this is certain; that no man, be his party what it may, can hope to become a "Cabinet Minister" without creating, in a great many innocent and patriotic bosoms, a vast quantity of enmity, suspicion, and alarm. The fact is melancholy enough; we need not make matters worse by moralising upon

them. But it is curious, as well as melancholy. That a Lord Babble, simply because he speaks from a bench opposite to that he occupied yesterday, should turn his feeble stammerings into thunder claps and frighten the world! That "Snooks"-simply because he has become the "Right Honourable Mr.," and kissed hands on his appointment should flutter the Volces afar off; disturb the dreams of crowned heads; fill foreign courts with dire apprehensions; and doom trembling millions at home to horrors not unnaturally attendant upon the shock of an earthquake.

This, finally, may be remarked-that if Cabinet Ministers appear, in too many instances, to have been appointed for the express purpose of shewing us "with how little wisdom the world is governed," few among the governed know how immense is the amount of talent of sagacity, vigilance, zeal, forethought, invention, and rare power in infinite shapes-hourly and momently exercised within the Downing Streets of mighty empires, for the purpose of sustaining Cabinet Ministers in the stations where wisdom is so often done without. Happy would it be for nations, if but a thousandth part of the enthusiasm that is exhibited in a party cause, were now and then-for eccentricity's sake-manifested in the cause of a people. It would suffice to redeem whole empires, and regenerate the world. Ministers ere now have owed their elevation to a red-heeled boot; been wafted to power by the force of a feather waving courtierly; been beckoned to a "more removed ground" by a frail lady's fan; elbowed their way in gallant impudence to glory, or crawled to eminence (the favourite plan) by any path, or through any loophole; but when there, how prodigious the aggregate of the power set in action to support them-in diplomacy, intrigue, plot, counter-plot, cajolery, intimidation, temptation, equivocation, snare, falsehood, flattery, and manoeuvre, unknown on earth until the advent of the first Cabinet Minister ! How vast the genius secretly employed, and how insignificant the open and avowed result! Spirit of the Back Stairs, if thou wouldst but come to the Front Stairs, thou, who sleepest not at all, shouldst slumbler half thy time-or all day long, with one eye open. A comparatively idle life—a semi-sinecure should be thine, and yet the nations should be saved! What a deal of trouble and talent honesty renders needless. It is easy for a Cabinet Minister to serve his country and himself, but what pains it costs him to serve himself only!

THE HANGMAN.

BY DOUGLAS JERROLD.

IN Sir John Suckling's incoherent play of "The Goblins," a certain courtier is thus apostrophised:

"A foolish utensil of state,

Which, like old plate upon a gaudy day,

'S brought forth to make a show, and that is all,

For of no use you are."

The sentence fits the Hangman better than the courtier; is even a juster description of the man of hemp than of the man of brocade : for with ourselves, the legendary grimness of the licensed man-killer suffers from the foolishness-the utter inutility of his calling; he is, indeed, a wicked superfluity; and yet the official iniquity appears less, from a besetting conviction of its absurdity. Our disgust is, in a strange degree, allayed by our contempt. The Hangman is a man of terrors; notwithstanding, there are moods in which we cannot refuse to him the cap and bells. The folly of the employer is reflected on the employed. The statesman, though he despatch with sad and solemn brow the sacrilegious death-warrant, by the very farce enacted by virtue of the instrument, makes the Hangman little else than clown to the rope.

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"But, murder, sir-murder," says a placid gentleman, oozing at the lips with Christian precept; surely, sir-God bless me!surely you would hang for murder ?"

Blood has been shed: yes, in some fiend-like brawl, a miserable wretch, denaturalised by rage-goaded by revenge-or, more appalling still, pricked on by gain-sheds blood. He murders his fellowman, and on the instant, from crown to sole, is he become a monster : humanity shrinks from contact with him: we turn from the murderer's eye as from a basilisk: to breathe with him the same atmosphere is, we feel, to breathe contagion. He stands, to our imagination, horribly dilated as though possessed by the everlasting demon. He is set apart-fenced from us by horrors: his brow is festering with the brand of Cain; his look reveals the flames within. With the face and form and speech of man, he is become as one of the doomed.