5 MAY 1838, Page 11

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

CORONATION CANT.

A MORE eminently absurd proceeding than the change of the day appointed by ordinance duly published for the Coronation of the Queen, on the ground of subsequent disr,wory that the day dyed

was the annniversary of the death of GEORGE the Fourth, bar perhaps never been witnessed. The discovery seems to have b;er

first made by a correspondent of the Times; bet the Mee Celt the ceremony would be actually postponed on such a ground, 'ea. treated by every one ns a joke. With the aid, however, of t!:e Marquis of LoNnoemEnnv, and a few others of the more jut feete and reflecting of the Tories, the Times has really succeelei no obliging Lord MELBOURNE to postpone the Coronation frein the

26th to the 28th of June ! The Premier alleged by way of ;tri-

logy, that the day of the demise of one Sovereign was also that of the accession of the next; but, confessing that he had fixed the flay inadvertently, surrendered at discretion to the commands of the Times; and the trouble and expense of a Privy Council :tad new proclamation were incurred to effect the important change.

The affair is altogether so excessively puerile, that we are almost ashamed to waste a word upon it. But it is painful to the ascendancy which cant and humbug have obtained over the public mind in this country. If the truth must be told, Gr:::,:qai

the Fourth went to his grave leaving scarcely a single friend ,.r its was attached to bins. It was not his nature to make friende. He had not the qualities which move "the trickling tear, the stii moan," over the tomb. No one can pretend that GEORr;:i. Fourth enjoyed the affections of iris people. The assunipt;u!:_ therefore, of the impropriety of the day fixed, cannot rest !tpol the personal character of GEORGE the Fourth ; but involves Ow position, that it is indecent to have any public rfjoicing upon anniversary of the decease of any former Sovereign. We %vendor, therefore, that the 28th of June should have been fixed, w:theat previous inquiries—by means either of a Select Committee, of ;; Commission, over which Sir FHA:acts Palma/Lyn might lairs been induced to preside—whether any former Kings or Qiivenee from the time of EGBERT, have died on that day ? And :t weee'd still more satisfactory, if the Commissioners were directed ftirtlii,r to report, whether at any period of our history, any inembv:•s ul the Royal Family, or any Foreign Sovereigns in alliance with Great Britain, appear to have departed this life on the :?si'h ut Juno ? and whether there is sufficient evidence that any of her 'Ta- jesty's Royal predecessors have been indisposed on that day, dist: te guishin g whether such indisposition terminated fatally or othe rwi se7 In a correspondence between Lord LoNnosnattav and a Mr. Gourm, published in the Times of Friday, it is proposed to pest-

pone the Coronation further till the 1st of August. " The House

of Hanover, it is remarked, "ascended the throne of these realms on the 1st of August—could there be a more appropriate (1,,y !lif the approaching solemnity ? " Now is not this "too bad?" Is it not cruel to suggest that Queen VICTORIA should be crowned on the anniversary of the death of England's last female S.)er. reign, Queen Anne ?