THE ROYAL VISITERS.
GREAT BRITAIN possesses unprecedented attractions for royal visiters—they are becoming as numerous in "the West-end" as Italian singers. To say nothing of those who have been, we have now imperial Russia and regal Saxony ; it is again given out that Lours PHILIPPE is coming forthwith and the Crown Prince of Denmark is on a geological tour in forthwith; What are they all after ?—great matters of state, or amusement ? And above all, what does NICHOLAS want ? Has he, in fear and dread, come to ascertain and counteract the diplomatic and social influence of Mr. URQUHART ? Has he come to see if the Poles have really suc- ceeded in obtaining the run of Buckingham Palace, St. Stephen's Chapel, and the West-end saloons, and in getting up a crusade for the deliverance of their Jerusalem ? Has he come to try if he can obtain an injunction in Chancery against M. DE CUSTINE s book?— to look after tallow and hemp, threatened with the competition of wholesale sheep-boiling in New South Wales, and New Zealand " phormium tenax" ? Or does he desire to see if the tales of England's distress and weakness are true ? The last conjec- ture is not probable ; for otherwise he would have gone to attend Mr. O'CoNNELes levees in Richmond Bridewell, and made inquiries of the Liberator on that favourite topic. Indeed, if he has come to see the "distress," he does not seek samples of it in the best places, by visiting races, and jewellers' shops, and palaces. Nor do we hear that he frequents the tallow- chandlers ', haunts the offices of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, or plays an alien Haroun Alraschid among the cellars of Manchester or cottages of Dorsetshire. Business, Poles, poverty, and dulness, seem equally eschewed by the inquisitive traveller. Perhaps if he did visit our factory-towns and poorer agricultural districts, he might not recognize the object of his search : used as he is to witness the condition of the •pulse-eating villeins in Russia, he might cry, "Call you this distress ?" and go back to his own boundless and semibarbarous domains, oppressed with a sense of little Eugland's wealth, comfort, and strength. "So high are their notions, so vast their resources, that they are exalted far above the common lot of man, as seen in Russia ; and they call that diatress' I"
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