NEWS OF THE WEEK.
mR. Disraeli has spoken at last, and his voice has, we suspect, broken the charm his followers found in his silence. The Tory leader talks just like a Whig Bishop. We never remember to have read a speech of so clever a man with so little in it. There is not a word about politics. The speaker passes over the condition of Europe as coolly as the condition of England, says as little of cotton•as of Reform, avoids foreign politics as anxiously as English interests, leaves Mr. Gladstone peaceably to enjoy his surplus and cheap French claret, and in his most melodious periods calls upon England solemnly to decide—that the Premier shall settle the question of Church rates. True, he spoke before the Oxford Diocesan Society, and may have been struck with the eccle- siastical chill natural to such a locale, but be might have spoken elsewhere had he preferred a choice. Obviously he chose his own ground, and intends this Session to rise to power through the aid of the country clergy. We do not know a cry on which Lord Palmerston would more gladly dissolve than a Tory Church-rate Reform, suggested by Mr. Disraeli, and acceptable to the Bishop of Oxford.
