TOPICS OF THE DAY.

I1UE AND CRY—W'111 GG ET HAS BECOME OF OLD WRY ?

THE principles which seated their ancestors on the throne " used

to be the never-failing tailpiece to the health of any member of the Koval Family at Whig jollifications ; and the principles alluded to were understood to be Whig principles. For out part, we honestly confess that we never could meet with a clear exposition of what Whig principles are. Their professors affect such defi- nitions as Mr. MACAULAY gave to his Edinburgh constituents.

That ingenious gentleman told his admiring auditorg, that the whig party had existed from the time or the Long Parliament That ingenious gentleman told his admiring auditorg, that the whig party had existed from the time or the Long Parliament

down to the present day ; that it included every man who during that period had struggled in the dominions of Britain for any right of humanity ; and that its principles were a refined quintessence, a concentrated distillation, of all the opinions discovered, invented,

or advocated, by this ever renascent phalanx. The " First Cabi-

net Minister" did not stop to explain whether this transcendental- ism of Whiggery embraced Triennial Parliaments, the voting the

House of Peers a nuisance, the abolition of Monarchy, the reiista- blishment of Monarchy, the abolition of Episcopacy, the Test and Corporation Acts, Septennial Parliaments, Gatton and Old Sarum, and the Refbrm Bill—each and all—for all in turn have been eulo- gized by his " sacred phalanx." And this has ever been time thshion of the Whigs : to throw down befbre you a whole Noah's ark of principles, clean and unclean, exhorting you to pick out the good, for time good were Whiggish, but affording you no guide to

the selection.

Upon one matter, however, circumstances have at times forced

these equivocators to be a little—a very little—more explicit. We allude to the Whiggish definition of the kingly character, and the relations of sovereign and subject. On this point Whiggery is an explicit compromise between Republicanism and hereditary Kingship. Whiggery rests upon what in England was termed the " abdication," in Scotland the " forfeiture," of a King— or basis it has none. Whiggcry regards the Sovereign as the chief magis- trate, and no more. A Whig may have affection for the individual

who wears the crown ; a Whig will always (in theory) pay respect- ful deference to the chief magistrate ; but a Whig knows nothing of what a Tory terms loyalty—love for the Sovereign in virtue of the kingly character. The Whig used to be jealous of affection for the individual relaxing the watch to be kept upon the chief magistrate. The Whig was wont to draw a line of demarcation between public and private character—between the social circle, in which persOnal predilections might be indulged, and the poli- tical circle, into which they dared not be admitted.

"Notts aeons changii tout vela," as Moraeitc's hero.said. Apron pox of the Royal marriage, the morning Ministerial organ says in reference to the Queen—" In the brief space since time commence- ment of her reign, she has done more to revive the feeling of popular loyalty than had been done to damage it through successive generations. The effect has been working slowly, but surely, in the popular breast ; and is ripening into a love for Alimarchy stronger than has been felt since the epoch of the Great Rebellion." And again—" The contumacious selfishness of the Peers and the des- perate audacity of the Tory fiction, have brought back, or are bringing back, the original relation qf sovereign and people as it existed anterior to the Stuarts, when it matic loyalty a deep passion and a religions feeling." This in a Whig journal! "The hands arc time hands of Esau, but the voice is the voice ofJacob." What has become of Whig principle ?

"Oh where, and oh where is my Highland 'addle gone?"

The truth is, that the Whigs having established a quarrel be- tween the Queen and the Tories, are determined to make her Majesty (and her husband) their own at any price. What we have quoted above is plagiarism ti.ont time old superstitions of the Cavaliers. But it is garnished with more fulsome cant. We are next told "how the house of the bridegroom has been the pillar of Con- tinental Protestantism "—the house of Coburg must stare at this new reading of history : and " how her heart is the shrine of re- ligious conscientiousness "—which may or may not be true, for any thing the writer knows. The Queen and her consort arc slyly ex- horted to revenge their short-commons on the stingy Tories—" 7'he reduction is virtually a fine upon the Queen and her consort for not bearing allegiance to the Tory party. For this offence they are amerced in a heavy penalty ! " Prince ALBERT is reminded that it was the Tories who curtailed his Naturalization Bill. Ile is advised to emulate the chivalrous lloasstax—" It' in private this any man dared to whisper of a bride such inuendos, he would be kicked out of the house which his breath polluted." Ile is ex- plicitly told that it is his duty to enact time part of the Bedchamber Ladies against any party who may succeed the Whigs in office— "'They [the people] will not the less rejoice in her having con- stantly by her side one devoted and fitithfid friend, whom even fiction will not dare to ask her to remove in order to impress the world with it thlse notion of its own power and her confidence." These last quotations assuredly do not smack of the Cavalier. They arc more in the style of the elder Figaro in the three of The Two Figaros. They arc outpourings of the Yellowplush school of politicians.

But we shall be told, in the first place, that the Morning Chro-

nicle was provoked by the Times; and, in the second place, that the Morning Chronicle is not in the Cabinet. llad the principles and sentiments of the Chronicle been worthy, its indignation would not have vented itself in back-stairs vituperation. It is not for us either to defend the intrusion of the Times upon her Majesty's family privacy, or to sympathize with its suggestion that a staid partner, with some ten years more on his back than Prince ALBERT, might have kept a stiffer bridle-hand upon a giddy girl. In that particular, the opposite "leading journals" may be well matched. The 77mes may pass muster for Kent, and the Chronicle for Gone- rirs Steward. But as to the non-responsibility of Ministers for the language of the Chronicle, why, the Chronicle does but echo the words of Lord Jour RUSSELL. When that noble lord, in the House of Commons, through which in former days he used to speak to the people, spake at the personal feelings of the scion of the House of Brunswick now seated on the throne—the scion of a house proverbial for its tenacious memory of wrongs, real or fan- cied—he gave the Chronicle its cue. The fulsome eulogiums passed in that journal on her Majesty for saying and doing what her Minis- ters advise, are meant to confirm her in habits of subjection to these 'Ministers, and are uttered with their concurrence.

Even were this stale trick played off in a gentlemanly and taste- ful fashion, it would be objectionable. The fickle likings and dis- likings of royalty arc no guarantee of wise government. The good dispositions of a young couple each aged twenty, surrounded as they me by vulgar flatterers, are too brittle a reed to lean upon. The Court is more likely to corrupt Ministers (assuming for a moment that their corruption yet remained to be effected) than Ministers to render time Court virtuous. In proportion as Ministers have grown strong at Court, they have turned their backs upon the People. It is their confidence in the Queen's good-will to them—in her anger against the Tories—that encourages Lord MELBOURNE to declare that the Corn-law Repealers are mad, and Lord Jonst Russar.r. to sneer at the imprisonment of Tuorton000 much after the Sallie fashion that CANNtNG did at the imprisonment of OGDEN. Strong in the !loyal favour, Ministers are prepared to uphold the Corn-laws—to job Scotch Judgeships—anti, after spending some thousands on a " Commission" to inquire into the Scotch Kirk's claim of additional endowments, to appoint a " Select Committee" for a little further shirking of the duty of judging and acting ac- cording to their convictions. During the whole debate on Sir J. Y. BuLLEn's motion, the defence set up for Ministers was on facts, not on principles: it was admitted that the Tory doctrine regard- ing the duties of rulers was right, and pleaded that Ministers had acted up to it. What has become of Whig principle ?

Last week we laughed at the marriage chronicles of the penny- a-liners : but when the spirit of penny-a-litters animates the lead- ing articles of journals known to be Ministerial organs, and the speeches of Cabinet Ministers, it ceases to be a laughing matter.

When, on MOnday, we saw the cheek of the young royal bride' flushed with overflowing happiness, we rejoiced to see a human

being innocently enjoying herself; and did not ask too curiously how much of love, or how much of excitement from the gaze of an admiring multitude, was mingled in her gladness. But our joy is dashed when we see menial-souled parasites—lackies in high place, yet lackies still in spirit—men of whom the " First Ca- binet Minister," the Windsor letter-writer, is a fair specimen—cal- lously watching the moment of gladness, not to establish a nation's liberties or promote its welfare, but to insure to themselves a longer lease of office and its emoluments.