The Parliamentary Committee on Steam Communication with India, China, and

Australia, decided on Monday, by a majority of 11 votes to 5, in favour of the route to Australia by the Cape, as the most desirable for the transport of the mails Mr. Frederick Hill, who has filled the office of Inspector of Prisons for sixteen years, has resigned that appointment, for the office of Assistant Secretary to the Postmaster-General.

M. Thiers has been in London during the week, the visitor of Mr. El- lice, at his house in Arlington Street.

One of the most stirring topics of town-talk this week has been a vituperative correspondence, contributed by Sir Robert Peel and Mr. George Frederick Young to the epistolary columns of the Times. Sir Robert began- " Sir-31ay I be permitted, through the medium of the Times, to thank the constituency, which, together with Captain Townshend, I have the honour of representing in Parliament, and as a son of the late Sir Robert Peel, for the spontaneous burst of indignation which greeted those musty pilgrims of Protection who on Wednesday evening last sought in the Town- hall of Tamworth a but deceitful refuge for the enjoyment of festivity and lamentation and abuse? It is, indeed, a source of congratulation to me that ' no mawkish sensibility' should have silenced the inhabitants of the borough and neighbourhood into apathy and indifference, or restrained them from giving vent to their feelings in resenting an insult upon the memory of one whose reputation, while it enobles their political antecedents, is so incontestably endeared to their recollection. " Is it not surprising, although perhaps satisfactory, that popular indigna- tion knew how to contain itself even in the moment of bitterest exaspera- tion, and that so much leniency should have been shown to the strangers who, for the gratification of their animosity, and with the view Of giving greater point to their vituperation and slander, thought proper to select Tamworth, the hall where yet echoes the scarce inanimate voice of the departed dead, and within a few yards of the very spot which is to be consecrated to his memory, in the vain hope of seducing a contented district into the belief of imaginary ills, through their insane exhibition ? "I trust most earnestly, that should a repetition be meditated on any fu- ture occasion, precautions may be taken, if possible, for preventing the effusion of blood; and that, by the binding over to keep the peace of such miserable impostors as Mr. G. F. Young, we may not have to lament ex- cesses which sooner or later must inev.tably be the consequence of their reckless folly, particularly should they again attempt to foist themselves upon the notice of the borough of Tamworth.

"I remain, Sir, with much respect, your obedient servant, " House of Commons, Friday, May 30." " ROBERT PEEL.

Mr. Young reciprocated- "Sir—The columns of your journal are usually so free from offensive per- sonalities, that I was somewhat surprised at observing this morning that I am stigmatized by name as a miserable impostor,' in a letter bearing a sig- nature which even I should have imagined would have constituted a security against coarse vulgarity. It appears I was mistaken. The present Sir Ro- bert Peel's taste in composition is on a par with his eloquence.

"I shall not bandy scurrility with the honourable Baronet ; he appears to be a proficient in the art, and I am unacquainted with it. But he is unfor- tunate in the designation he has affixed- to my name. I am conscious of many defects ; I may entertain erroneous opinions ; I may commit indiscreet actions ; but I never put forward personal pretensions, therefore I am not an impostor. The convictions I entertain conscientiously I express fearlessly; but I never attempt to deceive others by professing what I do not believe ; and I never deceived myself into a belief that I was so capable of expound- ing the sentiments I honestly entertain as the friends of Protection through- out the country have been pleased to consider me. It has been only at their earnest solicitation that I have ever attended any of the numerous meetings in which, at much sacrifice of time, convenience, and expense, I have taken part; nor have I ever originated or stimulated any of them. But I sincerely rejoice they have been held, and I am proud that I have been permitted to offer even the humble portion I have contributed to their uniform and sig- nal success.

" And now, Sir, having shown what is not, allow me briefly to describe what, in my judgment, is an impostor. If a man should be discovered who, representing a pure and virtuous Sovereign in a foreign embassy, should be discreditably distinguished as a profligate and a gambler—if as a member of a British House of Commons he should aspire to the dignity of an orator, write his speeches, and break down in delivering them—if after breathing for years the atmosphere of the very land of freedom, he should return to his native soil professing to be the champion of liberal principles, and be found practising on his vassal tenantry the most contemptible freak:, of potent tyranny,—should such a man be discovered, well indeed might he be branded as an impostor; and if he should have ventured to fling the foul epithet at men more upright and consistent than himself, deservedly might he be set down as a calumniator also. Let Sir Robert Peel beware—' They who live in glass houses should never throw stones.' "I am, Sir, your faithful and obedient servant,

" Winchester, May 31. GEORGE FREDERIC1C Ynntaa." Sir Robert had the last word-

" Sir—I pass over without note or comment Mr. G. F. Young's reflections on myself which appear in your impression of today. I leave public opi- nion to judge of the tone and taste of his language ; while personally „I have a consciousness, with all my defects, of not having merited his aspersions on my private character. There is, however, one portion of the letter which I cannot leave un- noticed, namely, that referring to the relations between my tenantry and myself, which is stated to be characterized by the most contemptible freaks of impotent tyranny.' " I enclose a communication, which I hope you will oblige with publica- tion, written by me on the 10th of May to my agent, on the subject of the than anticipated Protectionist meeting at Tamworth. " This letter, which was read to some of my tenants, the contents of it being made known to others, will show the amount of interference I was dis- posed to exercise on that occasion; and I shall leave the vindication of the general course I have pursued towards them to their own appreciations and testimony. I remain, Sir, with much respect, your obedient servant,

"London, June 2. ROBERT PE L."

" London, May 10, 1851.

"Mr. Matthews—I understand there is to be a Protectionist dinner at Tam- worth ; a proceeding which I highly disapprove of, and upon which, in this sense, I shall be glad of your expressing my opinion on every occasion. As a landed pro. prietor, and one who looks upon his tenant-farmers as members, as it were, of one great family of which he is the head, I feel deeply interested in their welfare and prosperity, and would most gladly assist in relieving, by legislative measures, the pressure under which they and theagricultural interests are unquestionably suffer- ing; but in the character of landlord, and from the social position I enjoy, I con- sider sider t necessary for me to let my opinions be known to them upon every occasion that presents itself; and while I am most happy to tender advice if solicited, or ex- planations if required, I also expect due consideration to be paid to the views I have expressed, or am known to entertain, and admit that I would hope to see them frankly adopted by those who are in the position I have named. "After all, I consider myself as much the farmer's friend as inky one else. I cer- tainly have as good a reason as any one else.

" Their prosperity is mine, our interests are common; but I look upon a return to protection (so called) as fatal to us both, and as likely to be productive of consequences far more injurious than the pressure which free trade has occasioned, I believe only temporarily.

" Make no hesitation in letting my opinions be known distinctly.

" I wish to leave the most complete independence to those who have a perfect right to judge for themselves. I would only direct their judgment, not interfere with it.

" If any of my tenants were to ask you whether I would disapprove of their assist- ing at a Protectionist dinner, you can say yes '; and for this reason—because I be- lieve they would be endeavouring to promote that which would be injurious to them and to myself, and that which would injure us both must clearly meet with my dis- approbation. Even should they not inquire, and you have an opportunity of alluding to the subject, use it to propagate my views.

" 'I ours, very truly, ROBERT PEEL. "To Mr. Matthews, Fazeley."

Mr. Pusey, the Member for Berkshire, has addressed a letter of ex- cellent advice to the farmers of his county on his position as their representative. About a month since, the Newbury Protection Society invited him to meet " Mr. George Young, shipowner,' at a dinner in the Town-hall at Newbury; but he declined to be taught his duty by Mr. Young, for reasons which he now touches off in a tone of quiet sarcasm. " At that dinner Mr. Young abused the Exhibition, which you will most of you see in Hyde Park, where you will judge for yourselves how far his censures were just. Last week he informed the Cambridgeshire farmers publicly in the Corn Ex- change, that if he is in Lord Stanley's Cabinet—of which he does not feel quite sure—he will there propose a gradual repeal of the Malt-tax. I fear, therefore, this obnoxious burden will remain long undiminished." Last Saturday, a Protection society met at Reading, and called upon a gentleman to oppose Mr. Pusey at " the next election." "This is an unusual course ; for three sessions only of Parliament have yet passed, nor is there much prospect of a dissolution this year." The novel proceeding, however, com- pels him to break the silence imposed on Members while their conduct is canvassed : he will speak with the " utmost respect," but in " the plainest possible English." As to his past conduct, he has this to say-

" Before the last election, I told the constituency, that the Conservative party being broken up, I should support Lord John Russell—and I have done rt ; that I should vote for measures of well-considered improvement—and I have done so, in common with all the Conservative leaders whom I have followed in the House of Commons for thel last twenty years ; lastly, that I should bring in a tenant-right bill—and such a bill has been twice carried by me through the House of Commons, but as often rejected by the Lords, which, of course, is no fault of mine."

In explaining what will be his future conduct, he discusses very freely the

party policy of Lord Stanley and Mr. Disraeli. from mistakes " The Free-traders, I must say, are not exempt from LaKE• on practi- cal farming. They told us at the repeal of the Com-law, that farmers must increase their crops by improving their land. But though a new loom may take the place of an old one in a few weeks, to improve a farm requires four years at the least ; and unless the landlord has large means at command to assist in the operation, the tenant may be gone before the improvement is made. Although, then, such improvements are the main source to which we must now look for relief, and if cheerfully, I hope successfully in the long run, I do believe that, owing to this mistake, the passage from protection to free 'trade was too sudden : and this would justify me in voting for a moderate fixed duty. Still, to agitate for high prices, and to give, if any- thing, 2s. or as. a quarter—to speak for protection and mean free irade—is a movement in which I cannot join, but must leave these misty regions and lofty flights to orators, while I endeavour to serve you by plodding calmly on the solid ground of steady improvement. It was one thing to oppose the Reform Bill, it would have been another when that bill had passed to seek the revival of close boroughs. While protection lasted I defended protection, but cannot brine my mind to take much interest in its mock restoration to life,

" The London Protection Society, however, by its emissaries, opposes all County Members who will not pin their faith to the new party which Lord Stanley and Mr. Disraeli set up. With hearty respect for the character of the noble Lord, and perfect admiration for the ingenuity of the honourable Member, I for one must refuse so to do ; and as it is from a Protection so- ciety that the sentence of condemnation has issued, I must remark, in the first place, how curious it is that Lord Stanley with inborn frankness has told us he will not reverse the policy of free trade ; while Mr. Disraeli has, not distinctly indeed, but after his roundabout fashion, in repeated speeches, night after night, tried harder to throw protection overboard than any Mem- ber whom it has been my fortune to hear in the House of Commons.

" What is it, then, the two Protectionist leaders who give up protection mean to do if they come into power? This is the real question. It is generally supposed that they would propose a 5s. duty on wheat as the ut- most they could hope to obtain. Now, at our county meeting, I said I would vote for such a duty : but the more I think of this remedy, the more in- adequate does it appear for your present embarrassment ; for practical men, I find, believe that a 5s. tax would raise the price of wheat not es. but 3s. only in our market, while the foreign producer would submit to receive 2s.

i less in his own. If this be so, you would not gain even 3s., for there is a duty of ls. already upon imported wheat; 2s. per quarter, therefore, would be the amount of your gain. The average price of wheat for the last week was 38s. 2d. The new party would raise it to 40s. 2d., exactly 2d. more than the price at which no one is allowed to say that wheat can be grown. For the whole 2s. I cannot myself think it would be worth while to over- turn a Government and dissolve a Parliament ; nor would the new Govern- ment be thought very satisfactory, by its supporters at least, if with the Member for the next county [Mr. Henley] upon the Treasury bench, you were now to read the weekly average price of wheat—as might have hap- pened if a Corn-law Government had been formed in March—at no higher amount than 40s. 2d. I can follow no such Will-o'-the-wisp.

" Not to dwell on Mr. Sidney Herbert's argument, that a slight duty might be enough for the landlord but not enough for the tenant,—a view of the subject which I have heard, however, from men in business, who think that the name of Protection, without the eubstanee, might save the rent but not save the farmer,—I believe and know that there are other ways in which these 2s. might be not gained but saved, which is, after all, the same thing. If anything so practical may be introduced into political turmoil, it may be said as a certain truth, that many improved thrashing-machines will reduce the cost of getting wheat from the rick into the sack by 2s. a quarter. This I know, for I have one such upon my own fain. Most of you may doubt it ; but 2s. seems to me, at least, as certain as those which Mr. Disraeli means to give us, and the process of obtaining them is a much simpler one. There are other means too, by which production may be increased or its cost be diminished, and so other and other 2s. be gained or be saved. * * * " No man can expect to hold a seat in the House of Commons without occasional contests; and far better men than myself have been often un- seated ; but I trust that the good sense and fair dealing of Berkshire will put down this premature electioneering attempt to forestal that verdict of the constituency by which at the end of each Parliament every Member must stand or fall. Come what may, I will never fight under what look to me like false colours."

News of the sudden death of Mr. Shell, late Master of the Mint, and more lately her Majesty's Envoy to the Court of Florence, was received in London on Monday evening. The melancholy event was sudden, though for some time Mr. Shell's personal friends and the large circle of his admirers were not without anxiety at the haggard expression of face and failing alacrity of movement which they noticed in him during the last session of Parliament. It is understood that anxieties of a family nature, more or less connected with the recent suicide of a near relative in Ireland, had already preyed on his mind in a manner to undermine his bodily health ; and an attack of gout in the stomach, which came on immediately after his receipt of that sad news, was the immediate cause of his death. For the following interesting biographical notice of the deceased we are indebted to the Morning Chronicle.

" Mr. Shell's life may be divided into three general phases : his career as a literary man and a dramatist—for it was as a writer of tragedies that he first came before the public ; his career as an agitator when arguing and en- forcing the claims of his Roman Catholic countrymen to civil rights equal to those enjoyed by Protestants—the most stormy, the most characteristic, and the most splendid period of his life ; and his Parliamentary career, which continued almost uninterruptedly from 1831 to 1850, and during which be gradually settled down from a fiery debater and a keen partisan, into a contented placeman, who only at rare and distant intervals raised that shrill and impetuous voice, which in the old days had so often rung over roaring and swelling multitudes, denouncing the bigotry and the in- tolerance which placed conscientiously-felt religion under the ban of civil disability. " Richard Lalor Shell was the son of Mr. Edward Shell, a gentleman who after realizing a competence as a Cadiz merchant had retired to a pro- perty called Bellevue, near Waterford. He was born in Dublin in 1794, and was accordingly, at the time of his death, on the 23d of May, in his fifty- seventh year. Young Shell was first placed under the care of a French re- fugee abbe, and was afterwards transferred to a London school, conducted by one of the emigre noblesse. His education was next intrusted to the authorities of the Jesuit College of Stonyhurst ; and he finally entered his name on the books of Trinity College, Dublin. Mr. Shell's oratorical powers began to show themselves at a very early period of life. He was a member of sundry college and general debating clubs in Dublin, and distinguished himself by the energy and passion of a very crude and extravagant—but by no means ineffective—and eminently Irish oratory. Mr. &heirs early efforts as a public speaker are said by those who remember them to have been strange pieces of hyperbolic rhapsody, expressed in the most extravagantly adorned and superlative metaphor, but always containing bold, individual, and original thought, and always delivered with an enthusiasm and a headlong excitement which sometimes caused as much merriment as the

evident intensity of purpose on the part of the speaker excited respect and admiration.

" Leaving Dublin and Trinity, Mr. Shell entered himself as a student at. Lincoln's Inn, and was in due time called to the bar. His father's draiiw. had not in the mean time prospered ; some unlucky speculations had crip- pled his resources, and it was to clear the expenses of his legal education_ that Richard Lalor first turned his attention to the drama. His opening

tragedy was Adelaide, a piece which owed some slight and temporary suc- cess to the impassioned acting of Miss O'Neil, who befriended -her young. countryman. Mr. Sheil was now practising at the bar ; but as briefs came: in but slowly, he persevered in his dramatic creations, and either before or- not very long after his first marriage with Miss O'Halloran, produced—at Covent Garden, we believe—not less than three tragedies,—The Apostate, Bellamira, and Evadne. Of these the first was, perhaps, the most success- ful. It was a Spanish story, the scene laid at the time of the expulsion of the Moors, and the play containing a fair allowance of melodramatic incident. and effect. The Apostate was originally played twelve nights, and has been. since more than once revived. .Evadne, however, his last play, has found most favour with the reading public. It has been acted several times within the last few years at Sadlerrs Wells, and, if we mistake not, also at the Surrey Theatre, but with little or no effect. In fact, Mr. Shell had too little in him of the playwright to be a successful dramatist. He could write good.- poetry, and could develop and elaborate character, but he knew little or no- thing about those minor but not leas essential arts of skilful construction and startling stage effects. Still his dramatic labours were not unprofitable ; it having been stated that his four tragedies had brought him not less than. 20001. Mr. Shell followed Sir Walter Scott's, advice, however, and lookeds upon literature, dramatic and otherwise, as a staff rather than a crutch-- giving up the stage and all that appertained to it as soon as he saw a chance: of pushing his way in his profession as a barrister and finally using the ban as a stepping-stone to political life. The grand 'agitation which ended in. the admission of Catholics to the legislature was, towards the close of the first quarter of the century, rapidIvrsr4iiiing strength and consistence, and under the adroit and vigorous leads of of O'Connell, the Catholic Associa- tion was fighting its sternly. way to the eight of. political power.. "In 1822—a year of Irish distress and famine—Mr. Sheil joined Mr.. O'Connell heart and soul as an agitator for Emancipation, and also for the repeal of the Union. He now became considered as one of leaders of the- popular party. His speeches were vigorous, and—considering the temper of the Government and the nation at the time—bold even to rashness. When. the measure to suppress the Catholic Association of Ireland was brought in by Mr. Goulburn, 1825—a measure ultimately carried on its third reading by a majority of 130—both Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Shell were heard at the bar against the bill. The language used by Mr. O'Connell on this occasion was so very violent that the Attorney-General held him to bail; but-the indict- ment preferred against him was thrown out by the grand jury. Mr. Shell's. general success in London was not the less brilliant that he had not achieved the main object of his mission. His oratorical reputation bad preceded him.. Great curiosity prevailed to hear him speak, and his admirers were amply gratified. The agitator was petted and caressed by the leading members of the Whig party, and went back to Ireland not a whit dismayed by the suc- cess of Mr. Goulburn's bill.. The tone of the speeches in which Idr. Shell now indulged attracted the notice of Government, and at length, after a phi; lip* of especial violence—the subject being in the main the life of Wolf Tone—the Attorney-General, afterwards Lord Plunkett, was ordered to do his duty. The trial which ensued bore a striking resemblance to other and' more famous state trials. Procrastination was gm game played by Mr. Shell's legal defenders—Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Ho/met, and the learned gentle- man who is now Judge Perrin. Legal objections were taken—all manner of ingenious flaws were discovered—long technical discussions, and dreary -delays and postponements took place—and in the interval the Liverpool Adminis- tration having gone out, and Mr. Canning having come in, the prosecution was allowed to fall through, and the matter dropped. Meantime, however, the impending fangs of the law had by no means sufficed to keep the versa- tile and energetic counsellor in check. During the Wellington Administra- tion he was indefatigable in the work of organizing and inspiring with energy and courage Catholic Ireland. This was the most ac- tive and energetic period of his life. He harangued, wrote, laboured at the formation of country and branch associations, and was, in fact, with Mr.. O'Connell, the main-spring and the active intelligence and soul of the whole movement. The agitation in its then phase culminated in the famous Clare election, which may be regarded as the final Stand-up fight, the issue of which decided the concession of Catholic. Emancipation. Mr. O'Connell then stood for the county against Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, a Cabinet Minister. The whole of the landed gentry of Clare threw their utmost influence into the scale of the Government candidate ; but the storm, raised in a great measure by Mr. Shell's eloquence, was irresistible, and the forty-shilling freeholders. triumphantly seated Mr. O'Connell. The event excited great interest, and some little partial disturbance in England. It was felt that the time had come for something to be done, and the Irish agitators crossed the Channel and flung themselves again into the raging contest between the rival creeds- Then came the celebrated meeting on Penenden Heath, when the yeomanry and freeholders of Kent carried a petition praying Parliament to preserve inviolate the Protestant constitution. Mr. Shell was present,.and attempted to speak ; but not one word could he succeed in enunciatin,g in consequence of the turbulence and excitement of the meeting, which led to scenes of the wildest riot. A good deal of amusement was however, occasioned by a bilt report of the unspoken speech, furnished of course by the orator, appearing in the columns of the morning papers duly garnished with the `hears' and `cheers' which Mr. Shell thought he was warranted in anticipating. The composition itself was a piece of mingled brilliant declamation and close and clear logic, and may be regarded as a fellow oration to the great speech at the Clare election. The repeal of the Catholic disabilities had now how- ever, in spite of the Penenden Heath affair, been virtually accomplished. The Peel and Wellington Cabinet yielded ; and on the 6th of March 182% Mr. Peel, in a four hours' speech, brought in the Catholic Relief Bill ; Mr. Shell soon afterwards proposing and carrying a motion for the dissolution of the Catholic Association, as having done its duty and accomplished the end

of its being.

"Shortly after the settlement of the Catholic claims, Mr. Shell received a silk gown, through the medium of Lord Francis Egerton; and in 1831 he was brought into Parliament by the Marquis of Anglesea, for the family borough. of Melbourne Port. Mr. Shell was not long in giving the House of Commons a specimen of his talents. It was the epoch of the introduction of the Reform B4 which was proposed by Lord John Russell on the 1st of Malebo:0d the honourable Member for Milbourne Port took iminediate part in the dis- cussion. His success, was complete; and he was publicly complimented by the leaders of the Reform phalanx, and also by hiss more generous opponents.. Then came the general election following upon the two defeats eustaiiied,by the Ministry on General Gascoigne's motion and the question of adjournment.. Mr. Shell then stood for the county of Louth, and was triumphantly return:- ed ; but, on the diasolution. in 1832, having two years previously been mar- ried to the widow of Mr. Ethiard Power, of Gurteen, by which alliance he succeeded to property in Tipperary, he became anxious to be Parliamentarily connected with that county, and accordingly was, in the year in question,

elected along with a son of Lord Lismore. On the 15th of February in the following year, Lord Grey brought in his Irish Disturbances Bill ; a measure which d through its stages with great rapidity, although pertinaciously

op by the Irish. Members, led on this occasion by Mr. Sheil,—a piece of tactics which produced a charge that the honourable Member's opposition was a sham opposition, and that in secret lie encouraged the Ministry to proceed with the bill. This calumny was investigated by a Committee of the House, and proved to be utterly groundless, and its original promulgator agologized most amply for his mistake. The celebrated Lichfield House compact, to which Mr. Sheil was of course a conspicuous party, was the next prominent event in his life. Previously, however, to that amnesty' and compact alliance,' Mr. Shell had distinguished himself by his bitterness in the de- nunciation of tithes, which he objected to in any shape, and by his very outspoken abuse of the Union. 'If ' said Mr. Sheil in 1832, 'if the Union be not repealed within three years, I am determined that I will pay neither rent, tithes, nor taxes. They may distrain my goods, but who'll buy ?' After the epoch of Lichfield House, however, this tone was given up for good and all; and after some coqueting with the Melbourne Ministry, during which the Irish Solicitor-Generalship was offered to him, Mr. Shell was ultimately preferred to the Commissionership of Greenwich lospital, and shortly after- wards made Vice-President of the Board of Trade, with a seat in the Privy Council. Mr. Shell was the first Catholic commoner upon whom this dig- nity was bestowed. During the State trials in 1843 he defended his old copartner in agitation Mr. O'Connell; and great hopes were entertained by Smith O'Brien and his friends, that they would seam have the advantage of Mr. Sheil's eloquence and moral weight in the Repeal cause. Shell,' said Smith O'Brien, 'must and will forget that he is a Privy Councillor, and only remember that he is an Irishman.' Mr. Shell, however, forgot nothing of the kind. He'had sown his oratorical wild oats, which had brought him a better harvest than is usually gathered from the agricultural process in question, and he had no notion of giving up snug Government berths for monster meetings and the chance of an ex-officio information.

"On the return of the Whigs to office, after the repeal of the Corn-laws, Mr. Shell succeeded to the Mastership of the Mint; which office being abo- lished last cession,* he proceeded to Florence, charged with the duties he was accorded so little time to perform.

"Mr. Shell was personally a little, square-built, active man. His style of speaking was very peculiar; his gesticulation rapid, fierce, and inces- sant; his enunciation remarkably quick and impetuous—sometimes indeed, particularly after he began to lose his teeth, degenerating into an absolute gabble, working up at the close of his sentences to a sort of loud voluble scream, rendered the more remarkable by the general high and squeaky pitch of his voice. Mr. Shell's matter was uniformly well arranged and lucidly logical.

"Like Macaulay, he liked to take one particular view of a question, and elaborate that by means of a series of close and hitting arguments, and vivid and picturesque illustrations, clothed in strong, nervous, and very antithetic, if not uniformly very epigrammatic language. The strain after glitter and rhetorical effect Mr. Sheil never gave up. The greater number of his speeches were prepared, and he occasionally wrote them out himself after they had been delivered."

• A mistake of the writer: the Mastership of the Mint is not abolished, but it is no longer a Cabinet office.

The death of the venerable Earl of Shaftesbury, on Monday, at his re- sidence in Dorsetehire, is an event of some interest both historical and Parliamentary. The Times supplies, with its usual promptitude in necro- logy, a memoir, from which we select the more prominent particulars.

Cropley Ashley Cooper was the second son of the fourth Lord Shaftesbury --the fourth in descent from that Anthony Ashley who stood fourth in the Cabal Ministry, so graphically portrayed by the most eloquent of modern historians ; and was the grandson of that Anthony Ashley whose reputation as a statesmanlike Viceroy of Ireland seems now to be eclipsing his past greater literary reputation as the author of the " Characteristics of Men and lifenners."

He was born in London, in 1768 ; and was educated at Winchester School, with Sydney Smith and the late Archbishop Howley. He had finished his aca- demical course at Christchurch, Oxford, and had made the grand tour, when, an 1790,. he entered Parliament for the finally borough of Dorchester ; which

he continued to represent for twenty-one years. He was nearly forty years of age when, upon the death of Fox, the Tories recovered their long possession of office ; and among their good deeds may be reckoned their ap- pointment of Lord Shaftesbury, then Mr. Cooper, to the office of Clerk of the Ordnance. To the duties of his department he applied himself with marvel- lous zeal; and it was always his own opinion that he there first acquired those habits of industry and method which rendered him certainly one of the most efficient members of the Upper House. When, upon the death of his elder brother, he reached the dignity of the Peerage, he thought it necessary to resign the clerkship of the Ordnance, though his private fortune was scarcely sufficient for a man encumbered with an earldom and a large family. Three years elapsed after his elevation to the House of Lords before his friends the Ministers found any opportunity of serving him ; for he took his seat as a Peer on the 6th of June 1811, and it was not until the 10th of November 1814 that he became permanently the Chairman of Committees,— an office which of late years has become one of considerable importance, for the Peer who holds it is Chairman of the Committee of Appeals, of the Com- mittees on Unopposed Private Bills, and of the Committee on Standing Orders. Corresponding duties 'in another place' are distributed among four public officers. Those duties which in the Lower House occupy the time and attention of the Chairman of Committees, the Speaker's counsel, and the two examiners of petitions, had been fully and well done in the Upper for nearly forty years by old ' Lord Shaftesbury, who was never old when business pressed. Strong. common sense, knowledge of the statute law, and above all, uncompromising impartiality, made him an autocrat in his department. When once he heard a case, and deliberately pronounced judgment, submission almost invariably followed. A man of the largest experience as a Parliamentary agent has been heard to say that he re- membered only: one case in which the House reversed a decision of Lord Shaftesbury; and on that occasion it became necessary to prevail on the Duke of Wellington to speak in order to overcome the ' old Earl.' • One valuable quality of Lord Shaftesbury as a Chairman consisted in his impatience of prosy unprofitable talk, of which doubtless there is compara- tively little in the Upper House ; but even that little he laboured to make less by occasionally reviving attention to the exact points at issue, and sometimes, by an excusable manoeuvre, shutting out opportunity for useless discussion. When he sat on the woolsack as Speaker, m the absence of the Lord Chancellor, he deported himself after the manner of Chancellors ; but when he got into his .proper element at the table of the House, nothing could be more rapid than his evolutions ; no hesitation, no dubiety, nor would he allow any one else to pause or doubt. Often has he been heard to say, in no very gentle tones, Give me in that clause now '—` That's enough'—'It will do very well as it is'—' If you have anything further topropose, move at once'—‘ Get through the bill now, and bring up that on the third read- ing.' He always made their Lordships feel, that come what might, it was their duty to 'get through the bill' ; and, so expeditious was the old Earl, that he would get out of the chair, bring up his report, and move the House into another Committee in the short time that sufficed for the Chancellor to transfer himself from the woolsack to the Treasury-bench and back again." Another writer commemorates his "miraculous scent for a job," the un- erring instinct with which his finger rested on a sly clause artfully smug- gled through the Commons ; and a personal peculiarity by no means without its value in Committee : he had wonderful volubility of utterance, and used to rattle through the clauses of an unopposed bill in a style of breathless and commaless rapidity, which was particularly useful in facilitating the pro- gress of business.

Lord Ashley, erewhile Member for Bath, now fills his father's place in the Peerage as Earl of Shaftesbury.