Star.
London, England, 1830-01-21 00:00:00

MR THOMAS LAWRENCE.

As at this moment every thing is of interest that re.
Wes to the accomplished and lamented artist so suddenly lost to
his country, a lady puts it at year option to give to the public a
nate received from Sir Thomas Lawrence very recently before his
death. It contains an elegant compliment to retired excellence
in a sister art; and gives an anticipating judgment on the young( -
ilefperwesse,frons which few who have seen Miss Kimble will dissent.
" Russell-square, Dec. 17, 1529.
" Dear Lady I should lament stiU more than sincerely I
do, that I could not obey year wish In receiving your son, if the
darkness of the weather bad not rendered my painting him ot
Tuesday impossible. I confess, with very true concern, to the fault
of not writing an answer to your obliging letter, which the pressure
of much and me:petted business prevented me from doing.

'• If the lam of a great pleasure may be considered as some

punishment for that offence, it was iniiirted on me last night, in its
depriving me of admittance to your box at the close of the per-
fonnanee, to have inquired of your Ladyship and Lady --, the

impression you received from it. I hope your hands were moving
as rapidly and heartily as hers. and from the same jest and generous
impulse. Miss Hemble is to me, the finest genius that has ap-
peared since Mrs. Siddons ; and. had else the same superior advan.
tags of person and countenance,(though the latter in herself is fine,
and of great and varied power), might almost equal her. There
were two or three bursts of passion. as natural and fine as any that
I remember from that muse herself. But I am. in this nimble,
losing the artist, in which only character I should address you ; the
penitent indeed being added to it. I beg my best respects to --,
and have the honour to be, dear Lady, your obliged and faithful
servant, (Signed) " T. LAWRENCE."

The Duke In LAVAL MONTMORENCY, the French
Ambassador, and the Russian Ambassador, were occu-
pied for a considerable time with the Earl of A BEnnEEN
yesterday, at the Foreign Office.
The Austrian Ambassador visited the Earl of ABER-
DEEN yesterday, at the office of the Secretary of Stat..
for Foreign Affairs.
The Earl of ROSSLYN entertained the Cabinet Minis-
ters to dinner yesterday evening, at his residence in St.
James's-square. This was the first Cabinet dinner given
by his Lordship to his colleagues since his accession to
the Ministry, and the second Cabinet dinner this season.
Nearly the whole of the Ministers of the Cabinet were
present.

The Earl of ABERDEEN visited the CHANCELLOR of
the Ex cii EQUER yesterday, at the Treasury.
The Earl of RossLvN and Mr. Secretary PEEL had
interviews yesterday with the Duke of W LLIN °vow.
Mr. PEEL, it is said, has undertaken to bring in a Bill
to regulate, and, of course, to do away with, many of the
enormous, not to say unjust and iniquitous, fees now de-
manded by Clerks of the Peace.
By the death of Lord REDESDALL, his pension of
£4,000 a year, as a retired Lord Chancellor of Ireland,
falls into the Civil List.

During the incumbency of Bishop NORTH he and his
family held preferment amounting to more than 40,0001.
per annum in the diocese of Winchester, more than half
of which is in the hands of his family at present.
Alluding to the union, or rather dis-union, which at
present exists between Holland and Belgium, a modern
writer observes, that he believes that Holland would be

stronger if she stood alone, for that no nation was ever
yet made more powerful by the addition of some millions
of discontented citizens.

Those virtuous and consistent people, the Whig Phil-
hellenists, do not seem to have considered it at all essen-
tial to their ideas of freedom that the Greeks themselves
should have any voice in the appointment of their future
Sovereign—Morning Herald.
A deputation of merchants from the City attended

yesterday at the office of the Board of Trade and had an
interview with Mr. LACK, the Chief Clerk, in the absence
of Mr. VESEY FITZGERALD.

It was decided, in the case of HANDS V. Hessov,
in the King's Bench, the other day, that general medical
practitioners, that is, apothecaries, are entitled to charge
for attendance upon patients. This decision was given
under the direction of Lord TEN T E DEN. It relieves this
class of medical men from the necessity of procuring a
remuneration for their time and attendance through the
medium of enormous charges for unnecessary drugs.
The extensive premises lately occupied by the old
Post-office in Lombard-street, which consists of a multi-
plicity of tenures, will, we hear, shortly be brought to
sale.

Lord LEVEION GOWER and family arrived at Liver-
pool on Saturday, by his Majesty's steam-packet Thetis,
on his way to London. He proceeded to Earl GROS% I:-
NOR'S seat immediately after his arrival.
Yesterday the despatches for Bengal and China, by
the ship Macqueen, Captain ROBERT LINDSAY, were
dosed at the East India House, and delivered to the
purser of that ship.
Yesterday a Court of Directors was held at the East
India House, when Captain CHARLES SHELDON Ti-
mms, of the ship Reliance, took leave of the Court,
previous to departing for Bengal and China.
The docks contain fewer vessels at the present moment
than we recollect for some years past. Work is conse-
quently uncommonly scarce among all persons who derive
their support from shipping, and much distress prevails
among the porters and labourers.—Liverpool Albion.
For the last three or four days a gentleman of military
appearance has every afternoon sported in Hyde Park a
dark green-bodied cabriolet, without wheels, in lieu of
which it is fitted up as a sleigh. The whole of the drive,
from the quantity of snow that has lately fallen, forms a
perfect sheet of ice. The sleigh is drawn with great ra-
pidity by a fine spirited grey horse, and to the harne,,
en attached a variety of small bells, which, from their
tinkling noise, and the novelty of sleigh-riding in this
eountry, attract no small portion of the attention of the
bequenters of this fashionable place of exercise.
Yesterday, the Marshall& Estate, at Romford, Essex,
illormerly the residence and property of Row LAND STE-
priorsow, Esq. was put up at the Auction Mart. The
thither, which was to be taken at a valuation, is considered
worth £1,200. The property was bought in for £14,120.
Twelve cottages, in Collier-row, adjoining Marshall's,
produced £1,610. The Estate cost STEPHENSON
£40,000
Hilary Term commences to-morrow, and is expected
to be peculiarly interesting.
On Wednesday Lord Munoz BERESVORD canvassed
the Duke of Davoeuttne's tenants in Dungarvan, and
did not meet a single refusal. On the following day Mr.
Joust-Hansom canvassed Dungarvan, and did not re-
ceive a single premise. The Duke of DEVONSHIRE
will allow his tenants to vets far whom they please.
Waterford Mail.


THE DUKE AND THE PEOPLE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR.

SIR—If there were not something more than meets
the eye the matter with this country—if there were not
,omething radically wrong at the core, the letters of
tit n~ Er." even in this hour of adversity, could not
fail to produce the happiest effect. When, Sir, was
r hi. kingdom in a state of misery and distress greater
than it now is ? and when was the voice of one alive—
feelingly alive—to the sufferings of his fellow-creatures,
permitted to pass by, un-echoed by every well-wisher to
his country, from John o'Groat's house to Land's-
End ? Why, Sir—l ask—is this ? Is it because the
distress is trifling, or is it because the lan-
...Nage is not energetic enough ? No, Sir, it is
neither of these—it is because the country is sunk in
apathy and indifference, and would not bestir itself even
though we rose from the dead and announced the ap-
proaching storm. Nothing similar to this ever occurred
in this country before ; but makes history no mention of
the like? When PHILIP was at the Gates of Athens,
I) F.3IOSTII VW ES shook the firmament with his eloquence,
hut could not restore to his countrymen—enfeebled with
luxury, and enervated with the love of ease—the ardour
of their ancestors. In the decline, and immediately
before the Fall of the Roman Empire, the same indo-
lence was manifested; and even within our own me-
mory, did a remarkable similarity of phenomena
precede the awful events of the French Revolution.
But what does his Highness of WATERLOO know of these
things ; or knowing them, which I much doubt, what
pains does he take to avoid the ills, the unerring signs
of which are so lamentably discernable ? Historical re-
cord seldom fails as a clue, and though collateral oircum-
stances may delay the crisis, he that runs may read that
every symptom which has marked the dissolution of na-
tions ingredient in the malady which wastes this once
happy land.
I ask not men to revolt, as our un-English ATTOR-
N y-G EN Elt AL—thanks for the information of a Sun-
day Paper, it appears, he is a Creole—would perhaps
interpret any popular movement; but I ask them to
avoid that revolt which must necessarily ensue, and
which it is impossible to contemplate without shuddering,
by rousing themselves from their lethargy, and for their
own sakes,and the sakes of all they hold dear, heaping ad-
dress on address to his MAJESTY, praying him to remove
from his council the Duke of WELLINGTON. Why, Sir,
the Duke of WELLINGTON knows no more how to steer
the vessel of State through the rocks and quicksands
which surround it, than Sir Jemmy would know how to
lead on a British army to victory and renown. And
surely, of all our ministerial birds of Paradise, there never
was one so little like a soldier as this exotic upstart !
Incapable, nevertheless, as it is proved he is, it cannot
but appear singular to the superficial observer, that his
Highness of WATERLOO should have more sway than
any prime minister this country has had for a long time,
and should be looked up to by a set of dolts, as a prodigy
of the first-rate production : but all this is easily ex-
plained. •

I have read somewhere, that when an eminent spirit
has signalized his valour and fortune in defence of his
country, he comes to have great influence in the people.
This is precisely the case with WATERLOO ; and yet, it
is sheer prejudice—for in fact it no more follows that a
great General should be a clever Statesman, than that he
should be a good Physician. Putting continental politics
out of the question—and GOD knows, the danger we
have now to apprehend, is not from abroad—l repeat that
an accurate observer of human nature would as soon rely
on the Duke of WELLINGTON being a good Physician,
as he would upon his being a clever Statesman, if he had
no other data for his guidance, than his services as a
General.

Fancy, then, this Prince of WATERLOO with the ne-
cessary quantum of wig, gold-headed cane, and so forth—
called in to a patient. What, I ask, has the poor devil a right
to expect who employed him, but that, if he complained
of a pain in the foot, or an ache in the head, that be
should direct that injurious operator Sir JAMES SCAR-
LETT to cut one or the other off—particularly if they
happened to belong to a body his Highness did not like?
Or—to reduce the matter to something more like reality,
—be it admitted on all sides that John Bull is piteously
ill, and wants a physician. Dr. Waterloo is called in to
prescribe for a violent inflammation in the extremi-
ties. The Doctor refuses to consult, except with
inferior spirits of his own choice, who, he knows,
regard him as the eighth wonder of the world. The
Doctor decides—the other submits : the patient is
relieved—praise and honour attends his steps : but,
alack-a-day ! the patient gets worse, and the disease,
which was confined to the extremities, is communicated
to the system. Yet the Doctor goes blundering on;
and without knowing any thing of his profession—taking
advantage of the gullibility of the world—administers
fresh nostrums, and produces-fresh disasters !
Report, Sir, tells usa monstrous fib, or his Grace of
WELLINGTON has done worse than this: for I have it
on authority I cannot question, that in reply to some
thing like enquiry, that some of his colleagues have
dared to make of him, respecting the distresses of the
country, ho has declared that he intends to propose
NO REMEDY—for that he does not believe in any
distress ! Let this be true, and what can we call
such a man, but a fatal ignoramus a calf, to
whom the men of Kent and Derbyshire—nay, half
the country besides—bow the head and bend the
knee, for want of duly discriminating between a great
General and an efficient Statesman ? Other causes of the
amazing power of the Duke, are his immense wealth and
his high rank, and that predominant spirit of quietism and
inactivity to which I have already adverted. To these
must be added the dismembered state of party at present.
The poverty and distress to which excessive taxation
has reduced the country have banished every vestige of
patriotism : and now, when an opportunity presents itself
to rally round a great man—educated perhaps a Tory,
but turning to embrace the people—each party, one pro-
fessing veneration for the person, the other for the popular
principle, seize with avidity on the flimsy pretext to
screen themselves from the reproach of apoatacy,
in their reckless pursuit of sordid lucre, or dishonorable
preferment.