20 NOVEMBER 1852, Page 10

Ziorttlaututts.

As We had previously announced, a meeting of the Conservative Mem- bers of the House of Commons took place yesterday, for the purpose of hearing from the Premier an exposition of the course of policy and ac- tion intended to be pursued by himself and his Government. About 250 [really 211] Members of the Lower House accordingly assembled in Downing Street, and were addressed by the noble Lord at considerable length in those lucid, frank, and manly terms which so peculiarly be- come him. No point of policy was left untouched, no purpose was veiled. We are in possession of the substance of his Lordship's speech ; but we are unwilling to publish a summary of it, lest faction should seize upon and misconstrue a condensed phrase, or upon a word, for its own especial purposes. Let our readers remain satisfied with the fact, that the ad- dress was received with unanimous enthusiasm ; and that when Lord Derby, in conclusion, invited discussion upon any of the points he had advanced, there was not a voice raised even for the purpose of debating the smallest of the details he had explained : cordial approbation and a resolve to support thoroughly the measures of Lord Derby's Administra-

tion were more positively and unanimously manifested than at any pre. vious aimilar assembly.—./forning Herald, Nov. 16.

Next month, the Earl of Carlisle will lecture at Sheffield, the Duke of Newcastle at Worksop, and Lord John Russell has definitively fixed the 8th December for his appearance at Leeds. All these noble persons will speak to the members of Mechanics' Institutions.

The Marquis of Londonderry has written a letter of congratulation to Abd-el-Kader, and invited him to England.

We hear with regret that the health of Mr. Roebuck is not re- established. Ile is at Bushy, under the care of eminent medical men; and he hopes to be able to take his seat in the House of Commons after Christmas.—Le,eds Mercury.

Dr. Mantell, the well-known geologist, died on the 10th. It was in 1812 that Mr. Mantell of Lewes began to form that large collection of fossils now in the British Museum. Since that time he has issued many works on geology. In 1825 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and in or about the year 1835 the Trustees of the British Museum bought his fossil collection. His latest book was entitled " Petrifactions and their Teachings."

The vacant Professorship of English Language and Literature at the London University has been filled up by the appointment of Mr. David Masson.

Major-General the Honourable George Anson M.P. has been elected to succeed Mr. Glyn as Chairman of the London and North-western Railway Company ; and Mr. Robert Benson has been elected as Deputy Chairman, in the room of Mr. Smith, who has resigned, but continues a member of the board of Directors.

It may possibly be true, as Mr. Disraeli informed the House of Commons last night, that "Fortune favours those who are at once inventive and pa- tient." As to invention, the less perhaps that we say of that the better. But few will dispute the Chancellor of the Exchequer's claim to the praise of extraordinary patience, when they recollect his exposition of the military character in last night's oration on the late Duke of 'Wellington, and com- pare it with the original in the following

PARALLEL PASSAGES.

"It is not that a great general must be "An engineer, a geographer, a man of

an engineer—a geographer—learned in the world, a metaphysician, knowing i human nature—adroit n the manage- men, knowing: how to govern them, an ment of men—that he must be able to administrator in great things, a clerk in fulfil the highest duty of a minister of small—all these things it is necessary to state, and then to descend to the hum- be, but these area, yet nothing. All this blest office of a commissary and a clerk ; vast knowledge must be exercised on the but he has to display all this knowledge instant, in the midst of extraordinary and to exercise all those duties at the circumstances. At every moment you same time, and under extraordinary cir- must think of the yesterday and the mon. cumstances. At every moment he has row, of your flank and of your rear; cal- to think of the eve and of the morrow— culate at the same' time on the atmo- of his flank and of his rear—he has to sphere and on the temper of your men : calculate at the same time the state of and all these elements, so various and so the weather and the moral qualities of diverse, which are ceaselessly changing men ; and all those elements that are per- and renewed, you must combine in the petually changing he has to combine, midst of cold, heat, hunger, bullets. . sometimes under overwhelming heat, sometimes under overpowering cold—of-

tentimes in famine, and frequently- amidst the roar of artillery. Behind all these

circumstances there is ever present . . Farther off, and behind them, is. the image of his country, and the dread- the spectacle of your country, with laurel tel alternative whether that country is or with cypress. But all these images to welcome him with laurel or with cy- and ideas must be banished and set aside; press. Yet those images he must dismiss for you must think, and think quickly,— from his mind, for the general must not one minute too much, and the fairest only think, but think with the rapidity of combination has lost its opportunity, and lightning; for on a monient more or less instead of glory, it is shame which awaits depends the fate of the most beautiful you. All this undoubtedly is compatible combination—and a moment more or less with mediocrity, like every other profes- is a question of glory or of shame. Un- sion; one can also be a middling poet, a questionably, Sir, all this may be done in middling orator, a middling author ; but an ordinary manner, by an ordinary man, this done with genius is sublime. . . as every day of our lives we see that ordi- nary men may be successful ministers of state, successful authors, and successful speakers; but to do all this with genius

is sublime. To be able to think with . . To think in the quiet of one's call- 'rigour, with depth, and with clearness in net clearly, strongly, nobly, this tin- the recesses of the cabinet, is a great in- doubtedly is great ; but to think as tellectual demonstration ; but to think clearly, as strongly, as nobly, in the- with equal vigour, clearness, and depth, midst of carnage and Are, is the most per- amidst the noise of bullets, appears to me feet exercise of the human faculties."— the loftiest exercise and the most corn- M. Thiers on the Marshal °melon de Si. plete triumph of human faculties."—Mr. Cyr, 1829, quoted is the Morning Chroni- Disraeli on the Duke of Wellington, 1852. ck of July 4, 1848.

We will not add a word to diminish the effect that must attend the bare- notice of this impudent and vulgar theft. Even while the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in the act of speaking, many of his audience must have been struck by the studied falsetto of his tone, the meretricious glitter of his rhe- toric, the utter absence of that broad and genial warmth which, as one might have thought, would have risen unbidden to the lips of the eulogist of Wel- lington. "Felix opportunitate mortis !" At least the Duke was spared witnessing this ignominy. The Duke of Wellington had experienced the vicis- situdes of either fortune, and his calamities were occasionally scarcely less- conspicuous than the homage which he ultimately secured. He was pelted by a mob. He braved the dagger of Cantillon. The wretched Capefigue even accused him of peculation. But surely it was the lest refinement of in- sult that his funeral oration, pronounced by the official chief of the English Parliament, should be stolen word for word from a trashy panegyric on a second-rate French Marshal.—Glebe, Nov. 16.

The Prince of Leiningen left England on Monday, crossing from Dover to Calais.

The Bishop of Sydney arrived at Southampton in La Plata, the fever-ship.

The Hereditary Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Russia arrived on the 11th at Vienna, accompanied by the Prince and Princess de Wurtem- burg and the Prince de Hesse.

Bishop Neander, who was elected one of the members of the Upper Chamber for Berlin, has declined the honour.

M. de Bontenieff, Russian Envoy Extraordinary to the Holy See, ar- rived at Rome on the 2d instant from Naples.

Marshal Haynau was at Florence on the 9th. H. Pernati, Minister of the Interior in the D' ,izeglio Cabinet, has been made a Councillor of State. The election of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow took place on Monday. The rival candidates were the Earl of Eglintoun and the Duke of Argyll. Voting was carried on for two hours, and the Nations voted as follows- 234 231

This gave the Earl of Eglintoun a majority of the four Nations ; and he was declared duly elected accordingly.

An order issued from the General Post-office states, that "Her Majesty's Government have entered into a contract for the conveyance of mails to the West coast of Africa by steam-vessels, to be despatched from Plymouth on the 24th of every month ; calling at Madeira, Teneriffe, Gores, Bathurst, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cape Coast Castle, Lagos, Accra, Why- dah, Badagry, Bonny, Old Calabar, Cameroons, and proceeding to Fer- nando Po. The mails for these places will be made up in London on the evening of the 23d of each month, and at Plymouth on the morning of the 24th of each month, except when the 23d falls on a Sunday ; and in that ease the mails will be closed in London on the evening of the 24th, and at Plymouth on the following morning. All letters and newspapers for the West coast of Africa will hereafter be forwarded by these packets, unless especially addressed to be otherwise sent ; but letters for Madeira and Tenerife will be despatched by these packets, or by the Brazil con- tract-packets, leaving Southampton on the 9th of each month, according as they may be posted in time for either line of packets."

A letter from Rio de Janeiro states that the Brazilian Government has made a request to the British Government "to withdraw our cruisers from their coast, as they wish to have the suppression of the slave-trade in their own hands ; for which purpose they have ordered six man-of-war steamers to be built in England."

Watson, a fireman on the Glasgow and South-western Railway, has been killed near Dumfries. A cattle-train was approaching that town from Glas- gow; and Watson discovered that part of the train, including the guard's van, had broken away. The driver and fireman resolved to back the engine and remaining trucks to regain the lost vehicles; unfortunately, Watson got on to the buffers of the last truck, apparently to keep a look-out for the missing portion of the train. The train had parted on a decline ; the hinder trucks continued to descend this decline ; the engine was backed against the descending vehicles, and Watson was crushed when the halves of the train met : he died three days after. Several of the trucks were broken by the collision, and some cattle were killed.

On Friday and Saturday last week, the Eastern shores of Ireland were visited by frightful hurricanes. Many wrecks resulted. Near Drogheda, a Swedish three-masted vessel went on the rocks and broke up, and only the master and a boy escaped from drowning. At Kingstown, part of the Eastern pier of the harbour, deemed impregnable, was swept away while traffic on the Dublin and Kiegstown Railway was interrupted by the sea sweeping over it, tearing up the sleepers, or covering the rails with sand and stones.

Eglintoun. Argyll. Glottiana. 93 112 LoudoniSna . 33 31 Transforthiana 28 28 Rothseiana 80 60 —