tic ifirtrapaItt.
The members of the City of London Conservative Association, with a considerable number of invited guests, dined at Covent Garden Theatre on Wednesday. For nn hour or two the streets from Water- loo Bridge to the Theatre were blocked up with carriages of various degrees of gentility, containing the guests and the female visitors in all their finery. The interior of the theatre presented a brilliant appear- ance ; the boxes being occupied by ladies, and the first gallery by a band of singers. The pit was boarded over even with the stage, in totter to fur- nish dining-room for the company, about a thousand in number. Alto- gether, the show was very splendid. Among the distinguished guests, were the Duke of Beaufort, the Duke of Newcastle, Lords Winchilsca, Haddington, Strangford, Hotham, Mahon, De Lisle, and Lincoln, Dr. Croly, Mr. Mortimer O'Sullivan, Mr. Trued, and Colonel Sib- thorpe. A long list of the Stewards is given by the Morning Post. Among them were three .Angells, two .Attw«als, three Barkers, four Browns, three Deffells, seven Iloares, three Pidgeons, three Youngs. In order to swell out their list of names, instead of taking one gentle- man as the representative of a family, the Tories have been forced to make as many as seven stewards of their grand entertaimnent. Mr. Henry Hoare took the chair ; and in the course of the evening, deli- vered ten long speeches, besides several brief ones. He was indeed the chief orator; and we have seldom read such a series of vapid but intolerably conceited harangues, as this gentleman thought it necessary to inflict upon the company. He quoted Greek as well as Latin for their edification; talked of theChurch of England us " facile princeps " over all other churches, and assured his audience that Toryism was immortal, and would survive "the wreck of aizes and the crash of worlds." He called upon the assembly not to drink the King's health " in a vulgar way"- " Republican principles (said Mr. IIoare) are not so narrowly diffused throughout the land, nor are they advocated with such slender ability, that we need deem it superfluous to indulge some warmth in testifying the loyalty of our hearts. Figures of Napoleon, in which I see Atheism and tyranny, rapine and blood, at once personified, are continually paraded in all the leading thoroughfares of this vast metropolis ; and if there were no buyers, methinks there would be no sellers. American notions find advocates amongst those deep and dark de-igners whose aim is treason, and who seek to delude; and pro- selytes among the unthinking herd of those who are incapable of detecting the artifices of which they arc the dupes."
We must give one other specimen of this gentleman's eloquence, which was delivered as part of a preface to the toast of the Army and Navy ; though we are at a loss to discover what connexion it had with our naval or military heroes-
" There, indeed, (at Radical meetings) they may have lost much of their sweet fragrance, by having poured upon them the poisonous breath of the foul spit it which calls itself the Sovereignty of the People ; but still that vile spirit has not as yet displaced them altogether. And, when I remember the character of the times in which we live, when the fabric of society is out of joint, and impious shafts arc lightly hurled at the Majesty of Heaven, I think that I am not wit out excuse fur having ventured to deviate from the ordinary course, and attempted to rescue them from being drunk in silence." The most virulent, stale, and vulgar abuse of the Catholics and of the Reformers, formed the staple of the remainder of Mr. Hoare's harangues ; which absolutely occupy three out of the four and a half columns devoted by the Morning Post to a record of the eloquence of the meeting.
The other speakers were the Duke of Beaufort, Mr. Mortimer O'Sullivan, Dr. Croly, Sir Claudius Hunter, and Sir John Beresford; who enlarged upon their own supereminent loyalty and religion, and the dark conspiracy against the Throne and the Church. It is to be observed that, although invited, the Duke of' Wellington and Sir Robert Peel had both the good sense to keep away from this exhibition of infuriate Anti-Reform and Orange principles.
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