DERBY OMENS.
So ominous a conjunction as that of Wednesday last could not have done less than bring a gloomy sky—it was the Derby Day at Ep- som, it was Opening Night at 'Vauxhall, and those two events oc- curred during a Derby reign—pluvious zera! That the Derby rule should have been so dry as it has been until lately, is surprising, since we know the effects when men dressed in brief authority play antics : on Wednesday, however, the heavens were unable to master their emotions. The painful conjunction will be marked by a black spot in the annals of Sporting and Protection. Lord Derby made his newest recantation—of course not his final recantation— on Monday, in the House of Lords; Wednesday was a wet Derby Day, on Epsom Downs.,
Another omen. On Tuesday, Ifaynooth was again debated, Spooner clinging to his standard with devotion exemplary but not imitated; for although the satirical motion to adjourn it to the Derby Day was negatived, no Members could be mustered to keep a House for the renewal of the debate on Tuesday evening; so that Maynooth was left to do its worst. The Derby influence had done nothing to avert that stultification of the course on which Derby had smiled ; the fatal omen befell on another course—on the next day at Epsom it was an Irish horse that won! The wet ground was not propitious to the paces of the most eminent Eng- lish horses ; but Daniel O'Rourke and Barbarian, both Celtic, found it quite to their mind. England's difficulty is Ireland's op- portunity.
There are, indeed, brighter days in store for Epsom. Confusion has been scattered among the betters ; but they are not, like the Protectionists, without a future. Tattersall's may mourn the flight of more than a common number of Levanters, but it will not, like the Carlton, find that a whole jockey Club has levanted. Derby preserves for Protection the tribute of his own private " opinion,"— an abstract fidelity which marks the extent of his slide into Free- trade by acquiescence ; but the Derby retains its faithful men in practice as well as theory ; and a Palmerston was found, even amid the lurid fires of a Maynooth debate, to maintain the joint privi- leges of the House and of the Turf, by pleading for the truly na- tional and Parliamentary holyday. He said little—no more than to point out the fact that, to obtain any attendance in lieu of an empty house, there would be no alternative between a call of the House and its adjournment over Wednesday ; and having pointed to the desperate visitation, a call of the House on the Derby Day, he moved the adjournment. Palmerston is the true Liberal-Con- servative: his greatest mistake was made on the doubly familiar ground of the course, as when he told people to call Ilione ECRU- onnee—to the unspeakable indignation of Virgil, who laid about the noble shoulders that " sceptrum Ilione quad gesserat olim "; but if he might be a little loose in measuring feet, he knows how
• to take the measure of Englishmen, and he knew that however the Saints might arrogate to themselves "a call," they must give way to the betters. While clouds shed their weeping gloom over the Derby, suffering for the crimes of its namesake, Palmerston was rewarded for his festive faith amid the genial amenities of the Fishmongers. On that course too, or rather on those courses and the dessert, the Irish horse won without omen against England; for Clarendon passed in his first probationary speech as a Fishmon- ger, and is henceforth a master statesman graduating in that Whig college. For these omens—adverse when his is the name tried in the augury, propitious to others—Derby has himself to thank. " Aide- toi, et le del t'aidera": he has helped himself in nothing, done no- thing to command the respect or ingratiate the liking of the English People, everything to exasperate the Irish—except the Irish mi- nority. He has partially delighted the Orangemen in Ireland, and alienated genuine Protectionists in England : that is the sum of his career. " Aide-toi, et le ciel t'aidera" : the "ciel " aids him not, but throws cold water infinite on his saint's day at the Epsom wittenagemote. There is yet another omen. In English politics we might paraphrase the French maxim, and say, Help yourself, and the Times will help you—" Aide-toi, at le temps t'aidera" it was very mauvais temps at Epsom, and the Times has given Lord Derby his deserts—that is, has deserted him.' The Times helps the strong, and it has ceased to help Lord Derby. Every dog has his day, but decidedly the Derby Day is over.
*The Times deliberately sets itself to paint the political portrait of Lord Derby and his Cabinet; and here are touches of the picture. "To be always doing the same thing over and over again, and never with effect, is the classical idea of punishment" . . . . "Yet who would not rather roll stones, ay, or break them, rather than undergo the periodical humiliation to which the head of our chivalrous Administration is forced to submit ? " • . . .
"If Lord Derby were not so entirely the cause of his own misfortunes, it would really be pitiable to see him cursed with a cause which he cannot sup- port and dares not disavow." . . . .
"The day is past when anything Lord Derby can say would do much either for good or evil. People are tired of promises sure to be qualified, and announcements certain to be contradicted. The country will receive with indifference Lord Derby's concessions with regard to the principles of Free Trade ; and his own supporters attach little weight to what he may say on the side of Protection. Both sides are fairly nauseated with the ever- recurring farce, and seem to be becoming impatient for its termination."
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