15 MAY 1852, Page 14

THE WEARY STATESMAN'S LULLABY. "BLESSED is the man," cried Sancho,

"that first invented sleep !" —a blessing best known to the hard-working. To them it comes on the hardest of couches. The labourer needs no down for his repose; the voyager can relish a snatch of unreckoned sleep upon a coiled cable ; and the weary statesman can restore his vegetative system on the bench of "the Lower House "—as the poor Chan- cellor of the Exchequer did on Tuesday night. So little of " short time " is there for the working Minister, that he is forced to the most irregular methods of stealing his night's rest, and sometimes Ile is fain to take part of it before dinner. This couch, however, may be more luxurious than it would seem ; for undiluted silence is not the happiest of all atmospheres for the slumberer, and ofttimes it happens that the House supplies soporific murmurs of extreme potency. Thus it befell on Tuesday, when Spooner came to Disraeli as the sprite from that sanctimoni- 'One hypocrite Archimago came to Morpheus;

"whom drowned deep In drowsy fit he finds ; of nothing he takes keep."

But Spooner was soother as well as messenger ; and his stream of eloquence performed the office of those drowsy murmurs which lulled the very god of sleep.

"And more to Lull him in his slumber soft, A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down, And ever-drizzling rain upon the loft, Mixed with a murmuring wind, much like the scam Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swown."

So the drowsy tones of Spooner, proxy for "Nature's sweet re- storer," fell soft upon the ear of slumbering Chancellor, "and his waste wards returned to him in vain." Having delivered a "di- verse dream" to the Protectionists, in the share of Protective pro- mises enclosing a Free-tradish budget, Disraeli

"down did lay Ris heavy head, devoid of careful cork."

How sweet that spectacle, of conscience-free enjoyment! He could not have done it if he had murdered a tariff. But no harm has been done, no crime committed, and Disraeli slumbered while ner spoke,—the silver sounds of the bright financial dream eerily mingling "with the base murmur of the water's fall."

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