The Ministry never weary of their new imperial cry. Sir
M. Hicks-Beach made a speech at Chipping Norton on Tuesday, and his two points were that the House of Commons talked too much— which may be true, but is hard on the House, as the Ministry left it nothing else to do, and snubbed it vehemently whenever it exchanged chat for debate—and the loyalty shown by the Colonies to England as against Russia. No colony wished to secede. All Colonies exulted in England's success. "The further one went from England, the deeper one found the loyalty to be "—a remark, it should be explained, which the Secretary for the Colonies did not intend as satire. He "did not believe in cosmopolitan principles,' —holding, one perceives, that Christ died for the British home- holder—and as for those men of genius who looked with pleasure on England yielding her place to America or Russia, "in spite of men. of that class, he held that England would always be the first country in the world." That little dig at Mr. Gladstone is very funny. No Cabinet Minister can avoid it, and we have there- fore this odd fact,—that if Dickens had described thirteen Mr. Dicks, all writing memorials, and all unable to keep King Charles out of them, he would not have been exaggerating in the least. The public would have thought he was, but the public had not then conceived of Lord Beaconsfield's Ministry.
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