was the secret of the whole affair? Was advice really needed? Were the petitions and claims really incapable of being understood by the local authorities? Was it, in fact, ever intended to make Malta a hotbed of sedition and an insecure possession, like Newfoundland and Lower Canada, by the same process as has led to these results in those colonies? No, certainly not. The secret of the matter consisted in the word commission; and though the advice of the governor was amply sufficient, though it was never meant to act by any other recommendation, that magic word settled the conduct of the Administration, and gave vigour even to Lord Glenelg. Well, therefore, may we affirm that the Melbourne policy has no equivocal and backsliding disciple in his Lordship! Well may we congratulate that noble advocate for "peace, reform, and retrenchment;" that pure No-patronage ruler, on his complete accordance in principle and in his practices with those patriotic persons by whom he is surrounded. Lord Glenelg is one of those reformers who prate very much about Tory corruption. We deny the correctness of the imputation, but this at least is certain: If it be correct (and Lord Glenelg, having long been a Tory, is perhaps somewhat capable of judging), he has not lost his opportunities of acquiring perfection in the art; if it be not, he has proved that he has at least genius enough to be original in one thing-namely, ingenious Colonial jobbing. Canada shall speak for his energy, Newfoundland for his liberalism, New South Wales for his attachment to the church, the West Indies for his prudence, India for his conscience, Sir Francis Head for his judgment, the Hill Coolies for his humanity, and Malta shall add her testimony to his marvellous economy and purity.

These things we recommend to the attention of the people. It remains for public opinion to declare whether incapable men are to conduct national affairs, and whether Lord Glenelg, who now stands at the head of the incapable class, is to remain in the most important, difficult, and responsible post under the Crown. Already he has done much to alienate the affections of our colonists, already he has done

much to break up that grand colonial system which has long been the pride, and not unfrequently the great source of strength, of this country. He has sent out men as governors who are notoriously incompetent; in some cases he has despatched the very men who are of all others the least qualified to obtain confidence either at home or abroad. Why, for instance, was Sir Andrew Leith Hay, who was the only member in all the House of Commons who opposed the abolition of slavery in 1833, sent as governor to Bermuda? Why was an O'Connell sent out governor of the important colony of New South Wales; the Radical Mr Hutt to South Australia; and Lord Nugent to the Ionian Islands? But, above all, what folly less than complete infatuation could have induced the Ministry to send Lord Durham, Mr Buller, Mr Ellice, and Mr Turton, to Canada? And what madness led Lord Glenelg, whose private character none can impeach, to sanction not only these appointments, but also that of Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield? Here, again, his Lordship is only following the example.of the rest of the Ministry. If Lord Palmerston can send a Mr Henry Bulwer to Constantinople, a Lord Clanricarde to St Petersburg, a Mr Kennedy to Cuba; if Sir John Hobhouse be content with a Lord Auckland in Calcutta, and a Lord Elphinstone in Madras; if Lord John Russell be allowed to give places to a Whittle Harvey, a Joseph Parkes, and a Fitzsimon; if Lord Melbourne make a Dr Hampden a professor, Evans a K. C.B., and Tom Moore a pensioner, surely Lord Glenelg, who generally is only one of the "imitatorum servile pecus," cannot be seriously blamed for following in the same track, and selecting similar characters for places and honour. If his colleagues establish a half-Popish, half-infidel system of education in Ireland, of course he, in duty bound, does so also, as we have shown, in New South Wales; if they encourage Popery, he does so too; if they pay its priests, he does so likewise; if Lord Normanby makes high sheriffs according to his own caprice, and passes by those who are duly nominated, Lord Glenelg, acting on the same principle, and going a little further in the working of it, hands them over, with the

judges also, to the tender mercies of a Newfoundland House of Assembly. Nor is his Lordship very backward with Radical Reforms, similar to those for which the present Administration is remarkable. We have seen how he has followed up the appropriation principle in Canada, how he has “reformed” the church in New South Wales, and even assailed the university of Nova Scotia. Thus humbly does he labour in his vocation; and the result is, as may be expected, that he destroys the security and the peace of our possessions. With mingled weakness and violence he hurries on, apparently heedless of consequences, and utterly dead to the contempt he encounters. He imparts, by his imbecility, strength to the motives of all our foes, and increases all their demands by displaying to them the existence of squeezable materials in the Cabinet, sufficient to give inducements to all who are will ing to use them. How can it be otherwise? Mr Roebuck was the agent of the rebels in Canada, and the Whigs assisted him at Bath. Mr Leader succeeded to the post, and the Whigs voted for him in Westminster; Mr Henry Bulwer was the paid servant of the disaffected in New South Wales, and was rewarded by a good post, first in Belgium, and then in Turkey. All those governors who have done good are recalled, and their energy becomes a recognised and punishable offence. All officers who do their duty are discouraged. So it was with Sir John Colborne and the late Governor of Upper Canada, with Chief-Justice Boulton, Colonel Arthur, Sir Benjamin D'Urban, Mr Jeremie and others. Nothing is now required to get rid of a vigilant governor but some false charges. Nothing is wanted to procure any violent measure of innovation but a little proportionately violent agitation, no matter whether in Ireland, Newfoundland, or Van Dieman's Land. When the Roman Catholics want another grant they say, "Of course Lord Glenelg will give it." When they find it necessary to their progress in the Ionian Islands that they should have government aid, they say, "There is no doubt of

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Lord Glenelg's assistance;" when they want a few dozen more priests in the West Indies, they exclaim, Apply to Lord Glenelg, there can be no question of his approbation !"* They display constantly the most con- .. temptuous confidence in his indiscretion, inconsistency, and folly. They have no hesitation in making the most extensive demands, and their past success undoubtedly is calculated to animate them with hope in all their fu ture proceedings to secure their lost ascendency, and restore their regretted despotism.

Such is a brief statement of Lord Glenelg's colonial misgovernment. No matter where he is traced, no matter how closely or how superficially he is watched, every where and in every thing there is discovered the same 'incapability. He holds the office some of the ablest men this country ever saw have held, and the only probable consequence of his career seems to be the decay of British influence, if not the actual loss of exten. sive possessions. By the courage and prudence of men who have (as we have said, and repeat again, and desire to sound loudly through the country) been disgraced and dismissed, Canada was saved when no human foresight could have given a hope of its restoration to tranquillity and submission. He delayed vigorous measures till something more than vigour was required-till, in fact, a dictator could alone secure what earlier measures of a far milder character might have entirely and permanently preserved from peril. And Canada, though it be but one colony among many, is, as an exemplification of Lord Glenelg's imbecility, and of the wretched weakness of the whole Whigradical Cabinet, a name for the whole empire. How long it shall so continue; how long our most important interests shall be made the sport of a petty and trembling faction, ridiculed at home, imposed upon by foreign countries, braved in the colonies, it is for the people of England to determine. It is idle to attempt to conceal that every year of Whig authority brands the country with disgrace, and loads her with difficulties.

It may

answer the purpose of hirelings to represent, that, although Lord Glenelg is inefficient, Lord Palmerston incompetent, and all the other Ministry wanting both in zeal and discretion, yet they must be kept in, all for the behoof of a Lord Normanby and a Mr Drummond; and on account of the blessings those persons are supposed to confer on Ireland. But this weak invention of the enemy, this paltry clap-trap, has no more power to delude. It has had its day, it has been exposed, and may now serve for a sarcasm, or pass current as a jest. And if it were any thing, would it really outweigh all the misdemeanours of the Ministry, and all the risks to which the nation is subject? But it is not true; it is a vain and valueless, a fraudulent and dishonest pretence; for Ireland, according to the testimony of Parliamentary returns, according to the acknowledgment even of the paupered demagogues themselves, is a

volcano bursting with terrific violence and unprecedented desolation. Well, then, we say, if Ireland too is but another evidence of Whig misrule, there remains not one corner of the empire to which their evil influence and their pernicious counsels have not carried danger and occasioned injuries the most deep and lasting. Every where the same policy has been adopted. Every where the same results have ensued. Time can only develope still more clearly the wounds that have been inflicted on the constitution of the country, its power, and its reputation; nor is there one who in future days (and those not distant ones) will be recognised as the author of more mischiefs and the agent of more destructive and disgraceful measures, than that pretender to statesmanship who now, to the dishonour of the land, feebly acts as the ruler of our colonial dominions.

THE important and difficult question of precedency among oysters has not yet ceased to exist as a "vexata questio" with enlightened and philosophic oyster-eaters. Information upon the subject is scanty, and when facts are few, theories abound, and conclusions are usually false and illogical. I have employed the tedious interval of the spawning season in putting together a few memoranda of a tour in the sister island, which I venture to hope will afford better grounds for instituting an exact comparison between the present state and prospects of oyster-eating in England and Ireland than are any where to be found, and may be the means of settling disputed claims, and of uniting in one natural bond of union and mutual support, oyster-eaters of all denominations.

I am aware that I shall have much to contend with in putting forward the just claims of Irish oysters. I know there exists an anti-Irish faction, eager to depreciate our oysters, and thirst

VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXXVII.

Ancient Pistol.

ing for their blood. I am well aware of the apathy of the oyster-eating public of England.-But I do not despair -No, my countrymen-our oysters shall be put on a perfect equality with the oysters of Purfleet and of Milton -the banks of Burren, and Carlingford, and Lissadell, shall be adequately represented in the Imperial oystercellars. Are our oysters inferior to their oysters-hence, then, for the Malahides and the Poldoodies, we demand justice—our oysters call for justice-we require for our oysters no more, and our oysters were slaves to be content with less!

The city of Londonderry lends her maiden name to the oyster of Lough Foyle, which finds a ready market in Liverpool, where the judicious tourist will do well to spend a few forenoons, the clean and well-regulated fish market affording every facility to the crustaceous epicure. Heavens! what a goodly show the marble benches boast! Gigantic turbot, already garnished with the live lobster-slimy

2 s

soles moist with their native element gelatinous cod-heads-but I di

gress.

The Londonderry oyster, then, as best seen in the Liverpool market, is small, well shaped, white, fat, and goodly to the view, but it is by no means a superior fish-on the contrary, there is a villanous after-taste, as of mud, excessively disagreeable a ground flavour, as if the fish had licked the slimy bed of its nativity. I have eaten this fish within the walls of its native city, but even the exulting recollection of the ancient glories of Derry failed to reconcile me to the modern muddy-tasted Derry oyster. Alas! poor Derry!

Progressing southwards, I arrived at Belfast, which boasts no indigenous bivalve, but adopts for her own the gigantic oyster of Carrickfergus, which, as I am informed, is the name of a city, not of an oyster-bed. Procuring a guide, I requested him to precede my steps to those Cimmerian regions" where oysters most did congregate," and presently arrived, guided more by the nose than by the other senses, at one of the retired emporia of shell-fish in the Athens of Ireland.

The place was a study-soft unresisting mud formed the primitive floor, a board, unplaned and rough, elevated upon a pile of bricks, simulated a divan, while the table was supplied by two of the divan boards tacked together, and extended from end to end of the "salon." A rushlight flickered in an old iron candlestick, and "a most ancient and fish-like smell" pervaded the apartment. Forthwith appeared a hideous crone, whose breath, redolent of whisky and tobacco, was expended in the business-like enquiry," Wud ye be for oysters, my man?"

This interrogatory was replied to by an order for half a hundred of her very primest Carrickfergus natives to begin with.

"Half a hunner-a hail half-hunner-Oh! oh! oh! the man's a haveril-a hail half-hunner o' Carricks-save us!" With this ejaculation my hostess, having clutched the rushlight in her palm, decamped, leaving me in a state of tribulation that may be imagined, as the saying is, but beggars all description.

In a few minutes, however, Alecto returned with the rushlight stuck in a trencher of the largest size, upon

which were half a dozen of the most magnanimous oysters I had ever seen. They were natives to be sure, but natives of Patagonia-the least rivalled in circumference the largest saucer I ever saw, while the biggest equalled the periphery of a soup-plate. What a vision for the immortal Dando! What would not Louis des Huitres have given for the dish? For my poor part I never relished making two bites of a cherry, or of an oyster either. Like humble friends, oysters do not take kindly to cutting. Every fish ought to be no more than a mouthful, but it ought to be no less. I leave to more enterprising gourmands than myself the task of a critical analysis of the Patagonian bivalves of Carrickfergus. I ought to observe, in justice to Belfast, that at the excellent tavern of M'Alister, in Graham's Entry, where the best supper in supper-eating Ireland may be had, there is to be found occasionally a supply of the real Carlingford oyster. Thisjoyful event, however, is rare, and I lament to observe that the metropolis of the north of Ireland is so debased by a too prosperous trade, so absorbed in the grovelling concerns of her thriving manufactures, that the breeding of oysters is shamefully neglected, and no pains are taken to awaken a patriotic enthusiasm on behalf of native Irish oysters in general, while the "Poldoody Association," lately established for the constitutional redress of ostracerial grievances, is here regarded by the very oysters themselves with silent contempt! With a sigh I ascended the "Fair Trader" day drag, at five o'clock in the morning, en route to the next town of crustaceous interest, passing along the great Dublin road, through a country of amazing fertility and beauty, inhabited by a sober, industrious, and religious people, watered by bubbling gravelly streams, sheltered from the cold north wind by hills whose acclivities were seen white with the bleaching linen, sometimes confounded by the stranger traveller with virgin snow upon the ground, sometimes caught through circling groves like lakes gleaming in the sunshine. To an indifferent person a sight like this might be worth the remembrance, but to me it was as a desert. My impatient soul bounded onwards to Newry, where I knew the "real Carlingfords" were to be had. My no less impatient

stomach, clogged with its material tunics, and sadly embarrassed with its serous, mucous, and muscular coats, gave vent to its ill-humour in awful rumbling noises, such as vex the intestinal canals of Vesuvius or Stromboli. But, lo! at the brow of the hill we pause in the valley before us lies Newry-beyond, in the far distance, are seen the blue outlines of the Carlingford mountains-beyond the mountains lies the bay-at the bottom of the bay lie the oysters. "Coachman leaves here, sir.' We are in Newry -and before us, on the break fast-table, in a huge wooden bowl, behold the gelatinous objects of our affections the real, the undoubted, unsophisticated Carlingfords, and no mistake!

Newry is dear to my remembrances -I have heard it called an odious hole, and so forth-to me it was every thing that was delightful, for the oysters were in season. The waiter at Black's (for your own sake go to Black's, the Shakspeare, and order your oysters in Edmund Kean's favo rite room)-talked about party squabbles and religious squabbles. I saw nor heard nothing of either, for the oysters were of the primest.

The disaffected grumbled, it is true, about the decline of trade, and taxation, and such stuff; crops, they said, were never so bad-when, may I ask, were oysters better? Thus is it ever with perverse human nature the vice to neglect the blessings we possess, and hanker after the blessings which we possess not, to complain of the unavoidable contingencies of sublunary things, and forget, in over-wrought anticipations of unattainable felicity, that much whereof the happiness of life is made up is still within our grasp, and that whatever evils oppress us, and whatever cares corrode, still there remains for us the consolation that we have oysters of the best, and that our oysters are in season!

I have always been prone to a belief in supernaturals, and a circumstance occurred while I was opening an acquaintance with the natives of Carlingford at Newry that by no means diminishes the Rosicrucianity of my notions of the spiritual. It was near the midnight hour-the candles down almost to the socket-I had supped sparingly on some three quarters of a hundred, more or less, of my favourite fish, scalloped, stewed, and au

naturel, kept down by half-a-dozen stiff tumblers of hot brandy and water, less or more-a sort of soporiferousness laid hold of me-the full length of the immortal Kean, presented by himself to his friend mine Host of the Shakspeare, reeled in its gorgeous gilded frame-the chamber was locomotive-if I had exceeded in any way I might have supposed myself a little "how came you so?" Be that as it may, however, a rustling noise was heard outside the door, as if a barrel of oysters had been tumbled on the spot, which I verily believe to have been the case, for on a sudden the door opening wide, in came a sea of oysters, rolling heels over head, in waves of confusion to my very feet. It was, in fact, a deputation from Carlingford, sent by the natives there to invite me to a public dinner. Think of that, Master Brook! By one of those legerdemain tricks that occur so frequently at public meetings, the entire deputation got, somehow or other, upon the table, where, having wriggled themselves into something like order, a venerable bivalve, grey with barnacles and age, advanced to the front, and having opened his shell, delivered himself nearly as follows:-" Sir, the natives of Carlingford having heard, to their cost, of your arrival in this neighbourhood, and being well aware of the deadly interest you take in their affairs, have resolved to sacrifice a number of their choicest inhabitants to your judicious palate (hear, hear!' from a little fat oyster); and accordingly, for the honour and reputation of the natives of Carlingford ('hear!' from the fat one), a sufficient number of volunteers have gene rously come forward (bravo!) to die gloriously for their compatriots ('hear, hear! and clattering of shells on all sides). We, the deputation in this matter appointed, do therefore respectfully solicit you to name a day (hear, hear!' from the corpulent bivalve) when we may expect the pleasure of your company at the oyster-beds, for which purpose the Mayor and Aldermen of Carlingford have generously placed an oysterboat and diving-bell at your disposal. (Great and enthusiastic clattering.)" What answer I might have made to this hospitable proposal I know not, for, having taken umbrage at the eternal "hear, hear!" of the little bloated