• WHO IS H. B.? •
THE most interesting of the "fashionable arrivals" has, we suspect, been omitted by the Morning Post. H. B. is in town : but where, and when, and libellee has he arrived? Has he been hunting at Melton? He draws cattle as if he understood the points of a horse ; and he was at Ascot; and in the • exercising field too—ride his sketches, passim. Has he been shooting grouse on the moors ?—Doubtful : he seems better acquainted with Joe Miller's jokes than Joe Manton's guns. Has he been at Brighton ?—Likely. • Is he a Nimrod? Who and what is H.' B. ? Is he " of the Court, courtly," as one whose face carries secrets "as the flint bears fire " assured us? The anecdote of the King falling asleep while BROUGHAM was making a set at his -Royd. Master, and that of Lord JOHN RUSSELL being mortified by meeting, on his way to Lord Mansfield's, at Caen Wood, a countryman who had never heard of him,—these and other signs denote not only a connexion with, but an interest in, Court gossip and the petty warfare of private party-polities. He hates BROUGHAM ; condemns Lord GREY ; quizzes. PatmEasToN ; pities the King ; holds lieu;: in horror ; respects the- " Dear Duke," though he makes him look foolish ; has a leaning to LONDONDERRY, and always makes him look handSome ; is more in the , Lords than Commons ;—all these are signs, denotements pointing to Aristocracy as the vantage-ground of H. B. Then he reads the John .6 Bull, and is Conservative in politics. Where does he get those like- nesses of T ALLEYRAND ? . No one bits off the venerable and wily diplomatist like H. B. Then again, he is always strong on .fiireitin.po. lities this, and his dislike both of. PALMERSTON and ABERDEEN, point to Downing Street.
The Belgic question has drawn out three of H. B.'s most spirited and felicitous sketches. In one, TALLEYRAND is enacting the part of Guy. Fawkes : with a dark lantern, lighted by Holland, he is about to set fire to the protocol-fagots and gunpowder armaments heaped up by the Allies ; while PALMERSTON is sneaking off, or keeping watch. Another represents TALLEYRAND as a spider starting from his hole to seize upon the silly buzzing fly PALMERSTON, who is caught in his web. This is in the true spirit of GILLRAY ; the idea is capital, and the exc.- cation worthy of it. TALLEYRAND is the personification of a hoary old spider ; and PaLmEusroN looks as helpless and imbecile as a blun- dering blue-bottle. " The Cat's Paw" is better still. TALLEYRAND, as the cunning monkey, grasps the fine-grown puss PALMERSTON; and, f: in spite of his struggles, stretches out his fearful paw to take those hot chesnuts' Belgium and Antwerp, from the fiery stove of Holland. The faces of both monkey and cat are admirable for expression, and a half- brute character.
The Elections have only elicited from H. B. two slight allusions. In one, HOBHOUSE is represented casting off his cloak of Radicalism, to accommodate himself to the warm place he is entering in the War Office ; while B URDETT, who receives it, reminds him of his engage- merit at Covent Garden, where he may find the atmosphere rather cool. The other is an amusing representation of Colonel STANHOPE, as one of the Tomer Hamlets. acting the part of Denmark's Prince, when. he follows the ghost of his father. It is a very fair hit at the gallant Colonel, who, in one of his speeches, said, " I'll follow Mr. Hume in every thing." Mr. Hums makes a most facetious Ghost ; and the Co- lonel, in Hamlet's costume, but with Wellington-boots and short troll-. sers, cuts a ludicrous figure. " Ministers in their cups" wants point.
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