- NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Sims no longer seaworthy, when about to break up between the strain of winds and waves, have been known to give forth strange Monitory-sound.s like wailing : the sailor cannot conjecture how the noise is made, or the exact spot whence it proceeds, but he knows too well its import, and his heart fails him. In like :flannel, certain ominous and cacophonous sounds have been emitted this week through the press, the source of which it is not easy to trace, though they appear to come from a Ministerial quarter, or at least from very near it. They are indeed almost as inexplicable and mysterious as those of the foundering vessel. Mention is made of ope Minister about to resign on account of growing years and infirmities, and another on account of sickness from prolonged over-exertion, and of some great unknown, en- joying the confidence of the mercantile community, to replace one of the seeeders, who it is delicately insinuated, is no great loss. But both the retiring and coming statesmen are so faintly adum- brated that their individualities cannot be recognized. The only inference to be drawn from such vague oracles is, that some of our preient ruler's bear uneasily the companionship in which they fitd themselves, and take this roundabout method of hinting to their fellows that they had better make room for more acceptable suc- cessors. The half-articulate moanings that have escaped from the recesses of the Cabinet are like those which issued from the pene- tralia of the pasteboard elephant on the stage of Drury Lane just. before the battle between the scene-shifters who filled and gave motion to its fore and hind legs shattered its framework. Lord john Russell, who has been flitting from place to place, unable to find rest anywhere, and apparently destitute of any fixed pur- pose, is again nearing wning Street, having visited en route the Chancellor of the Exchequer—can it be with the purpose to persuade Sir Charles to allow himself to be thrown overboard ? For to him and his kindred, more than perhaps to any others of the existing Ministry, the hints that it might be strengthened by their secession would seem to apply. Such indications of the worn-out condition of the Ministerial bnmboat are neither new nor of a nature to excite serious appre- hension. More alarming are those which encounter us on every aide of growing disorganization in the Established Church. The meeting at Plymouth to promote reform of the Liturgy, betokens a disposition on the part of the Low Church to take up the gaunt- let thrown down by the Bishop of Exeter in his Diocesan Synod. The correspondence with the Primate respecting the validity of the orders of Continental Protestant clergymen, implies the existence of an indecision and perplexity in the head of the Anglican Church, Most perilous when such dissensions are rife. Eagle-eyed to every indication of weakness or decay in the rulers or institutions of other countries, we pay little heed to those which mark our own. A Chinese—if a Chinese could condescend. tO note the proceedings of "outside Barbarians "—might discourse fi..? scholarly and wisely- on the symptoms of English decadence, -visible in the Ministerial incompatibilities and Archiepiscopal ir- resolution, as English politicians do on the apparent anarchy of the Celestial Empire. Moreover, the Chinese commentator might possibly be as much astonished at the uneourtly reception afforded to a Persian Ambassador in England, as English authors have been at the supercilious treatment of English Ambassadors in China,
