CONSTITUTIONAL HOUSEWIFERY.
LOAD DERBY, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Disraeli—such is the last "combination" suggested by rumour! How impossible it seems for the choice of her Majesty the Queen to escape from the magic round of a dozen names ! Lord John Russell, Lord Grey, Lord Palmerston—Sir James Graham, Lord John Russell, Lord Grey— Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham, Mr. Gladstone—Mr. Gladstone, Lord John Russell, Sir James Graham—Lord Palmerston, Lord Stanley, Mr. Disraeli ! It is a perpetual barrel-organ of sameness, sometimes going " astern," sometimes abeam. Is the Crown, ex officio, deprived of all inventiveness, or is it economy of resources ? Economy probably—housewifery. Queen -Victoria is a model of the English mistress of a house, and knows how to make a little go a great way. An economical housewife will make scrag of mutton go through the week; but what has not the excellent lady at the head of our house done with Lord John Russell ! You may scientifically recognize in the Monday's hash the roast leg which adorned the board on Sunday, but the palate can scarcely detect the same flavour : so you may have fresh Howl& as Secretary at War, all full of the juices of Colonial Reform ; and then the same Howick as Grey in a Colonial hash, totally unrecognizable. Well managed, a joint of mutton will smoke on Sunday, be cold on Monday, hash on Tuesday, grill on Wednesday, stew on Thursday, lurk in some coalition on Friday, and be still available for some- thing even on the Saturday. Next week, if mutton be quite worn out, there is beef; and that has a still greater tenacity of woke- bility. Mutton and beef, Whig and Tory—national dishes !—what more do Britons desire ?
The good housewife is not less careful of textile manufactures : you shall see the same stuff adorn the comely shoulders of the ma- tron, reappear on the slenderer charms of the elder daughter, brave the hazards of the play-ground on the manly shoulders that-are- to-be of the cadet, pass to some still more infantile service, and perhaps even distnbute a graceful charity among dependents otherwise to be more expensively supplied with the means of rub- bing-on. You shall recognize through all its darns and through all the metempsychosis that unlucky rent which scared the memory of the respectable matron for some most unmatronly romping on one too Christmas gathering ; the spot of grease added by the lovely hoyden second in succession shall ever be a badge to the time-honoured garment; just as "the whisper of a faction" mark -still remains even on the now conservative temples of the once audacious Whig, and a "missing despatch" shall be a sign through all the migrations of office. But you can't escape the connexion- bombasin or mousseline de laine, mutton or beef, Whig or Tory —there is a pertinacious parsimony of recurrence, that is, to con- less it, rather palling.
Wholesomeness is the rule in dietary ; serviceableness in rai- ment; birth in office. The last so far resembles the stable ; but the resemblance is slight. In the stable, the trainer seeks speed, bone, bottom, wind, courage ; but the selections for office are guided by none of those requisites—rather the reverse. The old pattern and the old names are the objects, on the Chinese plan. Our immortal offices have the same superlative contempt for all outside barbarians ; they are the true "Central Flowery." To be well born, that is the point—to have your name for a long long time on the record of Court favour, the Ragman Roll, or other old list. Not only to be well born, but to be of the families most used, that is best of all. As a learned smoker likes a pipe broken and blackened till there is almost none of it, and that little un- recognizable, so a patrician stock worn to its last legs, to its last idea, and that last idea thoroughly smoke-dried, is your true ma- terial for office. Russell, Stanley, Grey—Stanley, Russell, Grey— Grey, Stanley, Russell—you can't escape from it. It is in our sys- tem—it is constitutional ; and our constitution is too old to out- grow it at this day. Stanley, Russell, Grey—one dreams of it— Grey, Stanley, Russell !
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