London, 10th Feb., 1843.

DEAR HARRY-I arrived here safe, of course. One always does in these days of the ascendancy of steam, and the decay of stage-coaches. If there be a blow up, by way of variety, which very seldom happens, there's an end of the matter, and one is provided for without writing home to one's friends. The wind blew a gale as we crossed, and kept our good ship dancing the most extraordinary heel-and-toe performance to the music of the storm that it was ever my fate to take part in, and I cannot say that I have any violent inclination for a repetition of the entertainment on any future occasion.

All on board, to the very rats and mice, I believe, were sea sick, or at all events sick of the sea, for that bout. As for myself, to say that I was as sick as a dog, would be but a faint image of the dread reality. I was sick as a whole kennel of dogs during a surfeit in the slaughtering season. I should have died but for an old fellow in a berth at the other side of the cabin, whom I hated so for his imperturbability, that I resolved to live in the hope of paying him off some day or another. He had a nose like the claw of a mammoth-lobster, made scarlet by boiling, or like the half of a red-hot pick-axe; and for hours, while the vessel was pitching like a thing deliriously drunk, or dancing mad, he sat silently imbibing tumbler after tumbler of brandy and water, and munching up innumerable biscuits, and then deliberately disrobing, and turning in, he hung his nose over the side of the berth, as if to cool, and kept staring with hard unpitying eye at all the confusion and sickness going on below. I never saw such an inhuman red-nosed savage, and the more particularly odious, as he wore a coffee-coloured night-cap, with a high peak to it, like the mockery of a mitre, which is my aversion.

We arrived however, and were soon packed up like a bale of goods in a rail-road carriage, and forwarded up to town. In theory, I think rail-road

carriages travel too fast, and I cannot see any philosophy in being in such an infernal hurry. In practice, I don't feel that I go fast enough. When. I am spinning along at the rate of three-andthirty miles an hour, I feel as if I should like above all things to whip on the horses and get on twice as fast: we seem to walk or trot, and I should rather gallop. There seems to me to be so many reasons on every side of every question, disputable or disputed, in this world, that I find no way for a rational person to make up his mind but by determining to be prejudiced one way or another. I am therefore against railways in the abstract, as a modern Manchester invention, tending (indirectly) to the increase of cottontwist, democratic principles, pride, vain glory, and hypocrisy. On the other hand, as a mere practical matter, tending to the more easy conveyance of humanity and its accompanying luggage from Liverpool to London, or from Liege to Ostend, I cannot deny that these same railways are extremely meritorious.

By the way, happening to fall into a philosophical harangue near Birmingham (under the influence no doubt of the genius loci), I mentioned my disapproval of railways "in the abstract," upon which a good-humoured-looking man in black, with very broad skirts, begged to know what I meant by my phrase "in the abstract." This was rather a severe thing to ask in a railway carriage, from which there was no escape without the certainty of several very severe compound fractures, and a very fair chance of concussion of the brain at the same time, I therefore collected my modesty, and replied that "in the abstract" meant much the same as if one should say "for no particular reason;" at which the broad-bottomed gentleman laughed most heartily, and greatly commended the ingeniousness of my reply. Fearing he might think me a simpleton, I determined to poke a little philosophy at him, and expressed my hope that he did not think there was any thing very

unreasonable in disliking a thing without a reason, or without any reason reduced to the dry form of language, always so inadequate to express the minuter shades of feeling, and the more mysterious emotions of the soul, which, when they come to the surface, mingle with the common mass of likes or dislikes. Having uttered this very profound speech, with great intrepidity, and all the solemnity of a newly-made professor, my friend seemed at first a little surprised, but presently assured me that he very cordially agreed with all I had been saying, and before we parted earnestly pressed me to visit him at the rectory of in War

wickshire, if I ever should be passing that way; which I, with the usual sincerity of gentlemen on their travels, promised to do.

I got to the house of your very respectable relatives in Harley-street, about nine o'clock in the afternoon, and found them all as well as could be expected considering the very bad state of the times, and the prevalent distress. Your truly patriotic uncle, mindful of the necessities of the public revenue, and the great falling off in the duties upon port wine, was taking measure after measure to render necessary the bottling of another pipe at an early opportunity.

His most excellent spouse, and your cousin Kate, were sighing over the sad fact, that it was almost time to dress for an evening party in Byanstone-square; and your extremely laudable maiden aunt, who continues in a very high state of preservation, was asking advice as to the best mode of investing her January dividends, the interest in the public funds being so ruinously low.

Much the same sort of thing goes on every day, but with this addition that Miss Kate laughs, and her mamma smiles a great deal at me, as though I were a sort of merry-andrew, though I am, for the most part, as grave as a church, and as logical as a fellow of college. The London men have, no doubt, a vast deal of wisdom, but "'tis always so slow to come forth," as Myore says of something else, that I very often miss it altogether; and because we, who have been in Ireland, speak out at once whatever flight of fancy, or deduction of philosophy, may happen to occur to us upon the matter

under discussion, we are thought "so droll." Your cousin Kate, however, who has plenty of good sense, as well as mirthfulness and beauty, does us the justice which a great many others do not: but that is inter nos.

You wished me to write you something about the meeting of parliament, and I must try, though I fear there is as yet little of interest to be said. The opening of the session was shorn of its accustomed splendour by the resolve of the queen not to open parliament in person. Your highly-estimable maiden aunt says there was a good reason for this, which it is not possible I should know any thing about, and which ought not to be explained to me. This may be very true, but "they do say" (vide Mr. Crabbetree in the School for Scandal) that the first lady in the land was by no means inclined to forego her accustomed share in the opening of parliament, till that greatest of authorities with ladies in a certain condition, namely, the doctor, shook his head, and said it must not be. 'Twas well it was so settled, although to the infinite disappointment of some hundreds of grown-up children, the dearest delight of whose souls is in sight-seeing, and who would make greater efforts to obtain tickets for the House of Lords, when the queen goes there, than they would to save a village from starvation or the flames. "Twas well it was so settled, for no force of finery could have stood against such a day. The sheeted rain poured down, borne upon the western blast, and almost emptied even London streets of foot-passengers. Melancholy was Whitehall, and desolate the wide waste of Charing-cross. Nothing to be seen but cabs flying along, with small imitations of Niagara rushing from the hat-brims of the drivers to the Macintoshes with which their shoulders were enveloped. The posting-bills upon the boarding which separates the works going on in Trafalgarsquare from the Charing-cross footway, shone out in all the splendour of wellwashed red letter. Conspicuous among the rest blazed forth "Tom Burke of Ours," in letters ten inches square, and revealed to the wayfarers of the mightiest metropolis of the earth that another portion of "Our Mess" was served up, and ready to be devoured.

The rain ceased at noon, but still the' day remained too dismal to make it desirable to go down and laugh at the five commissioners, in cocked hats, going through the empty ceremony of opening the parliament, so I waited for the evening, when I knew there would be some smart talk. The House of Commons began first, with a large assemblage of members on both sides, looking about as slovenly and as stupid as usual, save the mover and seconder of the address, who were both in military uniform, the mover in scarlet, the seconder in blue and red, both young men, and rather goodlooking, especially Lord Courtenay, the younger of the two, and evidently the more at his ease. He really spoke with great fluency and considerable animation, or at least enough to appear to have some interest in what he was saying; but as he had to go over all the topics of the speech, the harangue became inevitably tiresome, so I walked into the region of the House of Lords which commoners are permitted to tread, and there found busi

ness just beginning. There might have been about twenty peers in the house, which, undoubtedly has a far more respectable, legislative appearance than the House of Commons can boast of. On the opposition side were Lord Fortescue, Lord Clanricarde, Lord Campbell, all of them familiar enough to Dublin eyes. On the treasury side were the mover and seconder of the address, both in scarlet uniform; the mover, Earl Powis, an elderly, grey-headed man, though only lately come to his title, in consequence of his father being so unreasonable as to live to the age of eighty-four years. The seconder, the Earl of Eglinton, the hero of the tournament, had nothing striking in his appearance; it would not have been so had he been in armour, with his well-poised lance in his hand. Close beside them was the Duke of Wellington, looking exceedingly well. His hair is now as white as milk, and you would say he looked as like a French abbé as the great military hero of England, the foremost man of all the world. He was dressed in black clothes, with a stock round his neck of purest white, fastened behind with a silver buckle, and he seemed the personification of neatness.

He showed, in the course of the evening, that his mind was as bright, vigorous, and decisive as the best friends of England and Queen Victoria could wish it to be. With great punctuality to the hour to which the house had adjourned, (five o'clock,) the Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst walked in, robed in his black gown and wigged, and took his seat on the woolsack. He then rose to read her majesty's speech, amid a cry of "hats, hats," some of the peers having forgot to uncover, which is the accustomed mark of respect when any communication from royalty is read. The speech having been read, Earl Powis rose to move the address, but as his lordship's oratory was not very exciting, I returned to the House of Commons.

By this time Lord Courtenay had finished, and Mr. Miles of Bristol was making his oration as seconder of the address. He clasped his hands, and held them steadily all the time he spoke, as a soldier when he gets the command to "stand at ease." He went on very steadily with what he had to say-sometimes tripping for a moment, but soon falling again into the thread of his discourse, which was manifestly an effort of memory from beginning to end, and a very good plan too, when the judgment is not quick and the imagination not fertile.

When Mr. Miles had said his say, up rose on the opposition side Mr. Charles Wood, member for Halifax, son-in-law of Earl Grey, and of course brother-in-law of Lord Howick. These two did form a party of themselves during the last year or two of the Melbourne ministry, from which they had, upon some crotchet or another, seceded. Lord Howick was the head of this dual party, and Charles Wood was Lord Howick's "tail." It appears however that now, in the time of their adversity, this party of two has joined the main body of the Whigs again, under Lord J. Russell's leadership, so Charles Wood advanced to fire the first shot. He is rather an uninteresting Henry Grattanish-looking man, (I mean Henry the living, not Henry the illustrious,) with a long face and a high narrow forehead. He spoke tolerably well, though without the least approach to grace of action, or agreeable modulation of voice. He

said nothing about an amendmenthinted certain doubts about certain points of foreign policy, though, upon the whole, disposed to think well of it, and ended with some laudation of the infallible wisdom of Mr. Huskisson, and some sharp sarcasm upon the dif ference between the minister and many of his supporters on the question of free trade. When this orator sat down, there was a pause in the house which is very unusual during the progress of a debate, unless when for a few minutes the speaker happens to retire. For the most part one sees four or five all jumping up together, and anxious to be heard. On this occasion the house waited, and Sir Robert Peel rose.

He was evidently not in spirits. He is not thinner, but he seems a much more worn man than when I saw him last; very pale, and seeming more like a man at the end of the session, exhausted with repeated debates, than one coming fresh to the encounter, and prepared to endure the six months parliamentary fag which are before him. Probably, not only the difficulties of the country, but the recent death of Mr. Drummond by a blow intended for the premier himself, may have, as Othello says, 66 a little dashed his spirits." Whatever were the cause, it certainly did not seem that "his bosom's lord sat lightly on its throne." He spoke very deliberately and emphatically, but apparently with an effort, as if forcing out his words. As an indication of the temperament of the minister, it may be noticed that though the conclusion of Mr. Wood's speech was rather a sharp attack upon him, he began with much coolness, and considerable solemnity, to express his great gratification at the unqualified approval of the foreign policy of the government to which the honourable gentleman had given utterance. was talking for half an hour, and had travelled all over America and the East Indies, before he came to the subject of commercial policy, upon which Mr. Wood had twitted him, and he then spoke of it with as little of the animation of retort as if he had been reciting an interesting passage from the multiplication table.

He

He was,

however, clear enough and emphatic enough, in stating that he did not mean to propose any important commercial

changes this session; that at present he had none in contemplation, but that he adhered to the principles of commercial policy he had propounded last session, and that when he did propose further changes, they would be founded upon those principles.

After him rose Lord John Russell, and to my surprise a good many members rose up from both sides of the house and walked out, while his lordship was clearing his throat to begin. To account for this it should be mentioned that the clock then marked some minutes after seven, and possibly these gentlemen were made reckless by certain internal cravings for dinner.

Johnny Russell spoke better than I ever heard him speak while he was a minister. He was then in the habit of imouthing long-wordy, pompous sentences, in which the sense bore about the same proportion to the sound, as Falstaff's consumption of bread did to his consumption of sack; but this evening the noble lord was quick and fluent in his elocution, and his manner had the ease of common conversation, with more precision and force than common conversation requires. He was about as disingenuous as ever, but he was most decidedly smart and effective. The little man looks hardened, like a piece of dried lemon-peel, and seems in good health for the sessional work.

When he sat down I thought the debate would have ended, but daftfighting Charley Napier got up, and began to talk in his broad Scotch accent; so I travelled again towards the Lords. It was only necessary to stand at the door to hear the debate, for Brougham was speaking as loud as when he used to harangue a multitude in the open air, and with the same Scotch accent, and matchless distinctness of utterance. At the moment I arrived, he happened to have fallen foul of M. de Tocqueville and his blunders about America and the right of search; and his voice was pealing forth in accents that might have been almost heard in France, if no storm had been raging in the channel, his astonishment at the gross, the monstrous, the incredible ignorance which had been displayed by those who ought to have known better, upon the subject of America and the right of search.

The House of Lords had grown