TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE LETTER TO THE QUEEN.

WE last week, briefly, but with promise of return, noticed the sub- ject of a pamphlet recently published, addressed to the Queen,* and which has been generally ascribed to an eminent Law Lord. The authorship of a political brochure is not, properly, a question of importance, though it may become so. If its " vein be good," it should make no difference to us who has " cast it upon the waters;" if had, no celebrated name should win our favour to its contents. But circumstances often do invest such a question with interest and importance too; and in the present case, for instance, many have felt a reasonable anxiety to know if a letter, breathing an unusually bold spirit of Radicalism, bordering on Republicanism, might be accepted as the key-note to the pertbrmances of the most remarkable orator of our time in the forthcoming session of Parlia- ment. Not that the matter of the letter is thereby rendered more, cr less, just or true, but that its presumptive author happens to be

amongst the prime movers of events, and that we know, from a mixed experience, how much of the fortune of the war may depend on his individual conduct in the field. Such men—and such are

few—are the planets of our political heavens; and there is assuredly no superstition in the astrology which ascribes to their ascendance,

aberrations, or conjunctions, a paramount influence over our future destinies. The learned and noble lord himself, however, moves in so eccentric an orbit, that the most practised political stargazer is unable to predict his position in the heavens with any certainty, much less tbr a period so distant as six weeks ; and—however clearly we may flatter ourselves he twinkles now from behind this Letter—by the time that Parliament meets and we would consult the horoscope of the new session, we shall probably hardly know where to direct our telescope in search of him. Quitting the question of authorship, therefore, let us spend a few reflections on the matter of this pamphlet. It is " on the State of the Monarchy;" the feebleness and precariousness of which are proclaimed in language sufficiently unreserved—more so perhaps than is exactly calculated to realize the object of one, who professes Mins& "anxious to conciliate her Majesty's favour to his principles, to gain her approval of his opinions.' fhe tottering condition of the monarchy is of course visited, with all other sins, on the heads of the present men in office—heads so often bruised by the same iron heel. The old game is played, at which the public has so often looked on with a terrible interest in the House of Lords; but a freshness is communicated to it by moving the Queen in front of the men, and directing half the assault on her. The writer, pos- sibly, despairing of ever obtaining the boon of resignation from

Ministers, and impatient at least that somebody should resign, may begin to think the Queen a more hopeful object ! Passages are not wanting to justify the notion. An overwhelming sense of the un- enviable nature of her situation is at any rate sought to be im- pressed upon her Majesty. Take the following example- " Nor let any one here take the trouble of reminding me, that children have aforethne held, or been supposed to hold, the sceptre, both in France and in England. Yes, they were suffered to hold it with fingers too tiny even to grasp its narrow end ; and no man, in those days, ever thought of questioning whether sonic more rational form of polity, were not more fitted for rational

beings. But do we live in times when, as in Louis the Fourteenth's case, the

infant Monarch, yet unemlowed with reason, and incapable even of speech, could Le shown before his Council as consenting to the appointment of a Regent and

Fuanlian of his realm ? or when, as in our Sixth Harry's instance, a slavering

idiot could be called upon to satisfy the 'longing desire of his faithful Com- aims,' by making a sign that lie heard their prayer ? It is fit that you and those about you should recollect, that long since these regal times, have come

the republican times of England and of France ; when all monarchy was trampled under foot ; when the imprescriptible right of men to govern them-

selves, whenever they are qualified for administering their own affairs, was pro- claimed to a consenting world ; nay, when, for a while at least, that period was anticipated in both countries, and a commonwealth established, somewhat sooner than the people were prepared to exercise their full share of political power."

And again-

" it is your fate to have the experiment tried in your person, how far a mo- narchy can stand secure in the nineteenth century, when all the powers of the executive government are intrusted to a woman, and that woman a child."

But the really strong point of the argument, as it respects the actual position of the young Queen at this juncture, is to be found in the subjoined extract-

" There is one act for which von and all Sovereigns are amenable : of choosing the Ministers the sole and undivided responsibility rests upon the Sovereign. In that act there can be no adviser responsible in any sense that is intelligible to plain understandings. Lawyers may quibble; the metaphysicians of politics may subtilize ; the transcendental doctors of our constitution may refine, and try to persuade us of what they themselves cannot comprehend— that the man who takes the office which his Sovereign tenders him is the responsible adviser of the offer thus made. No person of ordinary straight- forward understanding ever will bring his faculties to put any reliance upon such a fiction. Its want of all foundation in fact is obvious to the meanest capacity. So far it resembles the fictions in which the law delights. But it is not only unfounded in truth, it is contrary to the plain truth, nay, to the possibility of truth ; and he who can believe or imagine that any person is amenable for another's resolving to send for him and employ him, may next understand how Baron Trenek could fall into a pit, and then run home for a ladder to clamber out of it. Believe me, whatever those subtle doctors may say, the bulk of mankind look to the Sovereign, and to the Sovereign alone, as the party responsible for the choice of the Minister."

A grave and momentous truth is here indicated, rather than ex- pressed,—namely, that the known feelings of the majority of the People cannot continue to be wilfully disregarded by any power in • " Letter to the Queen, on the State of the Monarchy. By a Friend of the People." Published by somas, MAasuau., and Co. the state with impunity. In so far as this doctrine relates to this Sovereign, the writer's version of it will apply rather to a possible prospective, than to an actual present, conjuncture. It may not be true that a Minister is amenable for his Sovereign's " resolving to send for him and employ him ;" but he is amenable for continuing to hold office after the loss of public confidence. If the country, whose welfare is the sole legitimate object of his official existence, repudiates the Minister, it is for the Minister to tender his resigna- tion ; and it is for the Sovereign, doubtless, to accept it. The re- signation may be considered, under these circumstances, as a por- tion of that counsel which the one is bound to offer and the other to entertain. The Minister, in whom his country refuses to confide, ought to know, and must know, that it is for the interest of his So- vereign to accept his resignation ; which he is therefore re- quired by the constitution practically to advise, by offering that resignation for acceptance. The Sovereign, so counselled, either accepts the resignation, or lie does not. If he accepts it, he recognizes public opinion as the rule of his conduct, and in giv- ing strength to the People, adds to his own ; for, raised on a popu- lar basis, his throne is only strong it' his people are. If he does not accept it, then he diverts to himself all the odium intended for the Minister ; and he says to his people, in so many words,—" I, that rule for you rule against you; placed here only for your good, I provide only for my own pleasure ; you may detest my Minister, whose sport may be your death,' but I, who like his sport, cannot do without him." It has not conic to this yet, and we hope it never will,—or else, assuredly, the bargain of 1689 will have to be revised !

After giving check to the Queen in the above manner for some time, the author of the pamphlet—who seems not to have laid down any very strict plan of proceeding—takes a sort of knight's snore to a totally different square, and begins discussing the Franchise. He is, however, most welcome. All classes of real Reformers, whatever may be the difference of their ultimate views, arc now agreed that the dose we took in 1832 has done us little good beyond teaching us the use of physic ; and that the pangs we suffer at this moment— the n rebellion of the belly," as it is called, which we sec going on in the North and elsewhere, and which is the true political sto- mach-ache—that these pangs, we say, are not the fault of the physic, which the Tories say it is. but the fault of the Tories, who made it too weak, and of the Whigs. who were too weak themselves —or too treacherous—to prevent them. Everybody knows that while a good strong dose, taken fearlessly, cures a disorder, a weak one will kill the patient ; for the irritation, that comes to nothing, serves only to aggravate the disease. " Cowards die many deaths" —and this is one of them.

The whole remainder of the Letter to the Queen is taken up with this subject ; and it may well he so devoted. The question of the franchise and representative system includes every other ques- thm ; and though the consideration of so large a subject as that which comprehends all the interests of all classes of society, must often be interrupted as well as postponed, to make way for mett• sures of immediate necessity, more easily despatched, yet can there be no peace, no pause from agitation—even the best acts of the Legislature cannot be free from objection and the liability to future change—until the representative system of the country shall have undergone a thorough repair, involving extensive alterations of one kind or another. Nothing now needs reform so much as- " Reform."