NEWS OF TIIE WEEK.
pant Whigs and Tories have displayed vigour in assaults upon victuals. " Greatly daring" have they " dined," and doubtless in pant Whigs and Tories have displayed vigour in assaults upon victuals. " Greatly daring" have they " dined," and doubtless in drink they have been "judicious." Would we could extend the commendation to their oratory ; but truth compels the minds- sion that silliness was far more conspicuous than sense at the re- unions to which we allude. Neither party has the advantage. The pot is as black as the kettle.
Foremost in the rank of spouters stands her Majesty's Attorney General. Though his constituents could not manage a dinner, they gave " Plain JOHN" a substantial Scotch breakfast ; which lie professed to like as well. Some of the wise and witty things which fill from the Member for Edinburgh, we reserve for special honour in an after page ; but we may here pay a passing tribute to the extra-professional modesty with which he chinned for his clients the merit of the Penny Postage, as though it had been their own invention and voluntary act. Few of the persons whom Sir JOHN addressed could have been ignorant that the measure in question was wrung from the Government ; that it encountered the persevering opposition of the noble Postmaster-General, who was supported by his colleagues ; that it needed an express:en of public opinion so strong and universal as to be designated irresistible by the Duke of WELLINGTON, to induce them to undertake the bill; that their Chancellor of the Exchequer clogged his preliminary resolution with a condition which the real friends of the bill looked upon as a sure means of defeating it ; and that, finally, Lord MEL- BOURNE himself introduced the bill to the Lords with a speech made up of arguments against it. In the face of all these facts, undeniable and notorious, the Attorney-General clahns the country's gratitude to Ministers for Postage Reform! Next to Mr. ROWLAND Him, thanks are due to Mr. WARBURTON and Mr. WALLACE, Radicals or Whig-Radicals, and to Lord LOWTHBR, a Tory: but as regards the Ministers, the matter of congratulation is not that they had the will and the power to carry, but that they were too weak to withhold the benefit.
Proceeding in a Southern direction, we find Mr. DUNDAS, Sir GEORGE STRICKLAND, Mr. CAYLBY, and Mr. HARLAND at York. The plaintive pleading for Ministers, which composes the staple of speeches by Whig Members to their constituents on these occa- sions, is very ludicrous. It amounts always to this—" Now do have mercy upon them; really they would have done better if they could; the horrid Tories (oh, beware of Tories!) are so strong and wilful; don't turn Alinisters out, but, like dear good Reform- ers, rally round the men who carried Retbrin." And so they go on, manifestly under the strong impression that the cruel public will re- ject their prayer. Such was the general tone of the oratory at York ; but Mr. CATLEY discoursed in a different strain. Ile had sufficient intre- pidity to declare, that the Whigs had in no respect disappointed public expectation, but had fulfilled all their engagements, kept all their promises, and therefore he had resolved to "wear the badge of the Government." If Lord MELBOURNE has not already sent a patent of Baronetcy into the East Riding, Mr. CAYLET may think himself a very ill-used man. Of Whigs and their sayings, enough. A Tory muster in archiepiscopal Canterbury invites attention. There, Mr. JAMES BRADSHAW—whom the patronage of BEAU BRUMMELL, pink of dandies, was wont in days of yore to dignify and delight—railed against the Queen in a style befitting Billingsgate. The Times and Standard are quite ashamed of Mr. BaaDsn.iw ; though the evening Journalist insinuates that the Member for Canterbury only spoke what many think—and We may add, what many say too, though not at public meetings. Mr. Bannsnaw, probably, only gave utterance to what he had heard from his associates a thousand times over. He lacked the wit to discern the indecorum of insult- ing the Sovereign in a public place. However, he has received a lesson, and will probably keep what the Times calls his " talking sad victualling-tackle" in better order for the future.
There have been other Tory gatherings ; to which the general remark will apply, that while the Ministerialists stand on the de- fensive, as conscious of weakness, the Tories are eager for the fray, and only ask to be led into action. They champ the bits that curb them, but still are held back by their cautious riders.
