Five hundred Norfolk Tories had a dinner at Norwich on
Friday last. The four Tory Members for the county delivered themselves of very stupid speeches; and poor Lord Douro was obliged to do duty four times. This young nobleman appears to be of a very common- place order : the following specimen of his eloquence is equal to any thing he produced for the edification of the Norwich party. The Duke of Wellington's health was drunk ; and the Marquis having risen, amidst " enthusiastic plaudits," to return thanks, said- " It would have given me the greatest pleasure if the Duke of Wellington had himself been present to acknowledge the compliment which has been paid him by this numerous and most respectable assembly. But as it devolves upon me in his name to return you thanks, I shall do so without tiring you with many observations upon a subject which is one that I am sure you all have at heart. In the absence of the Nuke of Wellington, I may be permitted to say that there is no action cf his life which has been dictated by the desire of courting vulgar popularity. In his military profession there has been no sacri- fice be has not been reedy to make that his country demanded, and in civil life be has stood foraard in the best and worst of times, unmoved either by the glow of popuh.r favour or the violence of political storms, and like a Doric column, reutatkable alike for his simplicity and firmness."
Old Burdett has been figuring at a Tory dinner, given on Tuesday last t , Mr. H. B. Baring, at Burton-on-Trent. The health of " Sir Robert Peel and the Conservative Members of the House of Com- mons" having been proposed, Sir Francis rose to " respond to the toast ; " and prosed for some time in commendation of Peel's " unde- niable merits "-
" We Conservatives," said Sir Francis with great emphasis, " all of us throughout the country-all beneficial Reformers-all who wish for salutary reforms-jot adventurers in wild speculations, misled by stupid vanity or am- bition, or rather a love of notoriety-all who wish for the perpetuity of those great and glorious and noble institutions which far excel those of any other nation or of any empire described in the history of the world-must unite with me in considering Sir Robert Peel as the only man who, in the present day, seems capable of directing the operations whereby those institutions would be strengthened." Sir Robert was anxious to remove carefully any blemishes or real grievances in the institutions of the country which time had impaired. Sir Francis objected to the present Administration, not, as had been said, be- cause they were Reformers, but because they were no Reformers, but promoters of rash schemes of revolutionary tendency. They bad bad too many specimens of the bandywork of the present Administration. Some of their schemes were in progress, and others had lamentably failed ; but, however they might pro- fess to talk of the calamities which would attend the failure of their measures, the calamities thus entailed on the country would be trifling as compared with the evils of perpetual changes, originated without judgment, and leading to no beneficial results.
The health of Sir Francis was drunk soon afterwards, and the band played 4"rhe fine old English gentleman !"
At Kettering, on Wednesday week, the Northamptonshire Tories mustered at dinner. Lord Winchelsea vapoured about his disinterested devotion to the Church and the Monarchy ; and Mr. Maunsell prosed through about a column of the Times, chiefly in reference to the sta- tistics of the late and former elections for the county.
At a Conservative dinner at Monmouth, on Tuesday last, a reverend gentleman identified Irish Orangeism with English Toryism, and the Reverend James Crowther, lecturer to Mr. William Jones's Charity, gave as a toast, " The Battle of the Diamond."—Hereford Times.
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