NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Hs that has the fortune or the misfortune to be roused from pleasant slumbers on a moonshinynight by the angry cries of a couple of tom-cats, and who, making a virtue of necessity, adopts the resolution of watching from his window the progress of the deadly fight which such awful notes of preparation seem to portend, must not be surprised if he find in both combatants a disposition. to treat but slightingly the rule of the great dramatist, which teaches players to suit their actions to their words. The spit of disdain, the purr of defiance, the yell of rage, the eyes darting fire, and the paws threatening annihilation, he will find for the most part associated with a most pertinacious avoidance of collision. Nor must he be disappointed, after a number of flank movements, each accompanied with an increase of clamour, if, at the moment when he is led to expect an instant assault, with one sudden whisk, either or both of the challengers should bound from the field of battle with all the elasticity and courage of a hare. The position of England in respect to the brother Princes of Portugal, is not very different from that of the waked-up sleeper and the cats. The call to the battle between PEDRO and AliGuaL had sounded so loud and so long, that the eyes of the slumberers were at length unsealed, and we -looked forth with eager. interest to behold a struggle which every symptom told us must be deadly and decisive. The forces on both sides were drawn out; the trumpet sounded to the charge ; but neither advanced. The one sidled away, the other sidled away—Psoao to the town, MIGUEL to the country—war in their aspect, and peace in their hearts, the 1nnlx4point on which both agreed being to separate. To keep a crowitgor to snatch one, has been generally deemed a sufficient exease for achievements • of greatest hazard-; but the Portuguese Princes have adopted the Hindoo fashion instead of the Gothic, atictatrive to gain the object of their wishes not by lance and bow, batty sitting Dhurna; the contest being who shall do least, not who -shall do most.
-Under such circumstances, we are called on not to report the progress, but the standing of the parties. We have only to say, PEDRO Still sits and A/1'mm'. still sits. In the course of the week, some sixteen:hundred recruits have embarked for Oporto. Whether, when they arrive there, PEDRO will rise and fight, and MIGUEL rise and run, we do not pretend to guess; but our hopes incline that way.
