PHASES OF THE WELLINGTON MINISTRY—A PARABLE.
THE PRESS.
TIMES—If, as we cordially wish, the Duke of Wellington's political cha- racter is to pass with posterity for direct and undesigning, the evidence for ceding to him such a reputation must be purified from much, to which, on a transient view, a different effect might be ascribed. When his Grace first entered upon office, he found it necessary to propitiate the public mind of England, by displaying the liberal colours of a Canning Government, pretty largely mingled with his own and with those of his Tory adherents. We make this assertion not unadvisedly, because it is notorious that the Duke of Wellington, so far from openly seeking at the outset to displace the coad- jutors of the deceased Prime Minister from his Cabinet, besought them to retain the departments which they already held ; nor were these of a trifling nature. Tile Foreign Affairs, and the Colonies—the two most important (save only the Treasury)'in the whole Administration...were conducted by Lord Dudley, and by Mr. Huskisson, both men of decided ability and useful- ness. The office of President of the Board of Trade was filled by Mr. Grant, a man of liberal views and extensive information. The Duke of Clarence, appointed with the King's concurrence, by Mr. Canning, was left at the head of the Marine. Lord Anglesey, elected also by Mr. Canning for the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, though not formally inducted until after the decease of that statesman, proceeded to his Irish Government almost simultaneously with the Duke of Wellington's accession to that of England. Such, then, was the infant aspect of the Wellington Cabinet, bearing a mixed resemblance to both its parents—to the dead Liberal and the surviving Tory. As the child grew, however, the complexion betrayed a mournful change ; for a negro bantling will show at its birth no more than a slight shade of dinginess, not blacken- ing thoroughly but with time and exposure. The truth seems to be, that the country was not ripe at once for the endurance of a complete expulsion from power of all men professing those liberal principles which had recommended them to Mr. Canning's partnership, and the early promise and development of which, had diffused real gladness over the empire. It was therefore obvious to any common observer—even to one who looked at things through a Tory medium—that there might be danger in too sudden and violent a re- vulsion ; a dexterous manceuverer might easily flatter himself that circum- stances, after the Government should begin to work, would ere long enable him to elbow his uncongenial associates off the stools on which, for temporary • convenience, he had seated them ; and so it happened. No Tory or Servile has been disturbed by the Duke of Wellington, and every Liberal has been, by some movement or other, ousted. Every trace of Mr. Canning, on both sides of the water, has been, with curious diligence, swept away. Lord Dudley has been displaced; the navy has been once more borough-logged by Lord Melville ; anew job-master-general has been provided for the Ordnance ; and Lord Anglesey, from no adequate reason but his demonstrating the manly determination to think for-himself and to rule the people of Ireland through their grateful and kind affections, is now the last sacrifice to the half Tory, half military jealousy of every man who dares to hold passive obedience in contempt, and to value at their native worth the confidence and attachment of a gallant people.
STANDARD—Nothing can be more true than that Lords Dudley and An- glesey, Messrs. Grant and Huskisson, do not at present do us the honour of managing our affairs ; but the Times should recollect that Mr. Huskisson turned himself out—there was no mistake—and Lord Dudley and Mr. Grant struck with him. As for Lord Anglesey, we do not believe that there are two opinions in the country, as to the impossibility of retaining him in office, after his letter to Dr. Curtis. We may be pardoned for rejoicing at the extinction of these stars, because, at the very moment of the Duke's accession, we pre- dicted that the instant any of them ventured to step beyond the underling station to which their abilities consigned them they would be obliged to resign. They have resigned, either amid the silent contempt or the loudly expressed joy of the country ; and our affairs are 'prosperous in consequence of having thus got rid of imbecilefaineens, or mischievous meddlers.
MORNING JounNAL—About this time twelve months, the Wellington Admi- nistration was like a goodly tree in an honest farmer's garden. It was covered svith golden fruit, the reward of a liberal soil. The passer-by admired it ; the pippins glistened in the sunshine; the newspapers extolled it; and the little boys, as they came hungry from school, eyed it with many a longing look and, watery lip. The owner alone set the least value upon it. The public saw only the bright outsimie; he knew that the pippins, for the most part, were rotten—that they would yield no juice—that they would drop before they were ripe, and either be trodden upon by the hind or devoured by the hoir One by one they fell—but the owner was not heard to grieve. The old tinker. as he passed, saw them fall as the dog barked at him—he was in sorrow, but the farmer smiled. At, length, when all the favourites were gone, the owned cut off the branches where they had grown, and substituted grafts of a very different kind of tree. The mob lamented the calamity ; but the farmer smile, the more, and cut down here, and trimmed there, quite as regardless of the groans which came from the highway as he Was of the fallen pippins which lay bruised and despised under his feet. The mob loudly complained of this outrage on their good taste; said it Was an innovation upon the practice of the district ; that the tree was a popular tree, and that the lopping and maim- ing of it in such a manner was a heinous offence which could not be too severely punished. Our homely parable is, we trust, its own interpreter. The tree is the late Cabinet, and the glittering pippins, " now no more," are its defunct members, tee. Certainly there is no accounting for taste : what makes th Times sorrowful, makes us perfectly happy, Sec.
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