November are dark, that the police are liable to the attacks of pickpockets, street brawlers, or men who seize any pretexts for violence; all these things were known, however, before the King accepted the invitation of the city, and the speech advised by his Ministers on the opening of the Session, is the only new circumstance which would have altered the reception of the royal train. We I do believe that the Ministers would have been assailed with the common expressions of an English mob's displeasure; we do believe that, at night, there might have been rioting, or the attempt at rioting, because such circumstances are probable on occasions of large assemblages, in which there must be many ill-disposed persons, who will make public grievances a pretext for creating the confusion serving to their knavish objects; but these considerations hold good against any spectacles gathering the people into masses, and were not especially forcible in respect of the monarch's intended visit to the city. For the first time, we learn that the wilfulness of those described as the lowest rabble, or rogues, is to prevail against the pride of the great and the pleasures of the respectable mass of the people. If the Duke of Wellington thought himself so odious to the people that his appearance would have excited tumult, his course was to retire, and to leave the King free to pursue the career of popularity. If, on the other

hand, he apprehended only the hostility of the idle and profligate, he should have trusted to the arrangements for the preservation of order, and to better disposition of the immense mass of the people, to put down the disturbers of the peace. But he thought neither of the one nor of the other consideration; a panic he wanted, and on the first pretext for a panic, he greedily seized.

The King was popular, is popular; for his popularity is not damaged by what has passed, as the people considerately distinguish between his Majesty's dispositions and the selfish policy of his Ministers; but if he retain an administration which has become odious and contemptible, it will be supposed that he has affections for the persons, and policy that have provoked popular disgust, and his favour with the nation will give place to other and less agreeable sentiments.

The explanations of Ministers have been received with a mixture of ridicule and indignation. Sir Robert Peel claimed praise for the government, on the score of its having forborne to call for new powers upon the great state emergency of the pickpocket riots, and the Alderman's letter. What wretched materials for an alarm !-so wretched, so miserably mean, that they are insufficient for the mere stuffing of a plot. Ministers would joyfully have laid a green bag on the table of the House of Commons, but they had nothing to put into it

except the Alderman Key and the Watch-house returns of some two or three scores of assaults and battery, with the usual accompanying casualties of bloody noses, black eyes, cracked crowns, &c.!

UPON the success of Sir Henry Parnell's motion for referring the Civil List to a Select Committee, the Wellington Government gave up the ghost.

Hated, despised, derided, covered with every species of disgrace, the Wellington Administration has fallen-an example and a warning to statesmen of the controlling genius of the age, and the power of opinion. Never did a Government, in the short space of fourteen days, contrive to render itself so odious and so contemptible. With what ingenious management it indicated all hateful purposes, and with what matchless fatuity it discovered the weakness that neutralized the vice,

letting I dare not, wait upon I would," showing the mind for mischief and the hand powerless of the evil achievement!

How vast, yet silent and unsuspected have been the advances of the popular cause. Six years ago, the declaration against reform which passed from Wellington's lips as his doom, marking him rash and dangerous, homme aux abois,-six years ago, the same speech would have been received with cheers, and re-echoed with praise by all the sycophants, parasites, dupes, and fools, in the

united kingdoms. But a different understanding has begun to prevail. The eyes of men are opened, their wits sharpened against abuse, and the mere worldlings, even the time-servers and slaves of authority, saw that the Minister was a discredited and lost man, when he uttered the impudent outrage against truth and the common sense of the nation. If, as a quaint old writer says, "It is pleasant music to hear disarmed malice threaten when it cannot strike," how sweet should have sounded the voice of Wellington in the House of Lords on the memorable 2nd of November; the Duke's great talent was for silence, but like the fabled swan, he gave voice as prelude to his approaching end. To us the omen sounded pleasant; but our enemies heard in it the raven's croak. The Scotch have a superstition, that when a man is near his death, he becomes fey, and denotes his approaching fate by a number of unusual and frantic actions, of whose character he appears unconscious. The Duke's political demise has been signalized by these tokens: the King's speech, his own additional extravagance against reform, his panic, his susceptibility to aldermanic impressions, and ludicrous yet disastrous resolves, all bespoke the fey spirit of the Scotch. He is now departed from the place of power, and with him are for ever gone the antiquated principles of misgovernment, whose sudden revival caused almost as instant destruction.

LAMENTABLE FELO DE SE.

On Wednesday last, an inquest was held by Mr Stirling, the Coroner for the County of Middlesex, on the body of A*th*r D*ke of W*ll*ngt*n, who committed suicide in his office at the Treasury on Monday last.

The Jury, on viewing the body, found scarcely an appearance of head, so completely had the unfortunate Nobleman destroyed all signs of that organ of intelligence.

The first witness examined was the Duke's valet, who deposed that his Grace had for many months past been in a declining way, and latterly much troubled with vain fears. He thought he saw a change in his master's manner, first about the month of July 1829, when he talked strangely of Prince Polignac, praising his wisdom, and seeming to feel an uneasy admiration of his mode of government. Soon after he was troubled with blue devils, and was very sad after reading the newspapers. A pompous gentleman who used to call often, he thought, did his master no good-he said the Duke's blue devils were the Printer's Devils, and we would find a way of laying them.