Star.
London, England, 1830-07-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE JOURYALS.

lienacro.—The popularity of a King is so cheaply purchased,
that we wonder the instances of that sort of regal fame should be ,
comparatively rare. To make a Sovereign of a free state popular
requires little or no effort on his part. He need only 'hew that he
values the love of his people. and it is conferred. His present Ma-
jesty is not, by the laws of the realm, more firmly seated on the
throne of his ancestors, than he is by manners securely fixed
in the affections of his people. His courteous and unaffected
condescension—his frank and manly sentiments—his disdain
of unnecessary parade—and the preference which he gives
to that enjoyment which is to be derived from familiar con-
tact with faithful people over the selfish pleasures of se-
clusion—are eminently calculated to give him that popularity which
is the best protection of the Kingly power. Although there4was ao
monarch that ever swayed the sceptre of Great Britain withltrisers
hand than Queen Elisabeth, she knew how to temper her b
notions of the prerogative with a due admixture of those minor
virtues which soften the sternness of despotic grandeur. When she
curbed the ambition of haughty nobles and proud prelates in lan-
guage of imperious authority, she was affable and conciliating in her
manners towards the people. She knew how to gain their hearts by
the expression of national sentiments and generous confidence, which
were sure to attach to her both their honest pride and their kindly
affections. Her memorable answer to the Spanish Ambassador, when
he expressed his surprise that she ventured abroad without military
guards, is an instance of her capacity for giving to regal power
the most attractive exterior. " Behold," said she, pointing to
the assembled crowds by whom she was surrounded, " behold
the guards of the crown of England !" Who can wonder that a
Sovereign, capable of uttering such a sentiment, should be popu-
lar ? Burke has eloquently alluded to that chivalrous spirit
which constituted what he called the " cheap defence of na-
tions." Here we have an instance of that Royal magnanimity
which constitutes the " chief defence" of thrones. Where the
people are the " guards of the crown," it can equally defy foreign
hostility and internal treason. It has no cold support—no merce-
nary protection. It is, therefore, with peculiar pleasure we observe
the kindliness of feeling and the affability of demeanour which
William the Fourth evinces towards his subjects. It was an un-
fortunate circumstance for the popularity of the last reign that the
Sovereign passed the latter part of it in such deep and habitual se-
clusion. This has been made the subject of bitter and invidious re-
mark, but we are convinced it arose from a consciousness of bodily
infirmity, which made his late Majesty averse from appearing
in public, because it was painful to him to endure fatigues conse-
quent upon such condescension, and perhaps unpleasant to endure the
gaze of the people.. But, from whatever circumstance it arose, it
was certainly unfortunate, and did much to detract from the popular
effect of the many virtues which his Majesty possessed. Royal se-
clusion in this country, unless it arise from inevitable necessity, re-
minds the subject more of the stately pomp of an Oriental Chief,
than the dignified, hut familiar, deportment of the Sovereign of a
free people.

Cuanxtcio.—The Reverend Edward Irving, in a retest sermon
preached at the National Scotch Church, called Om) to witness that
the representations of our contemporaries, with respect to the iodic.
ference on account of the illness and death of the late King, are ate
terly unfounded. But let us hear his account, as given in extracts
in Tee Pulpit t.—." But, surely, if ever a verdict of acquittal
from every hasty and inconsiderate charge was ven to a Mo-
narch by a free people, it was given to him during these many
weeks of sickness by which he was confined. I had tho:2;
tunity (of witnessing the conduct of many classes of society,
and of many families, and I can truly say, that if it had been
the father of any of these families 140 had been so afflicted,
there could not have been manifested greater concern for his afilic.
tion—therc could not have been more fervent prs;:ers for his reco-
very. And this feeling was universal. The prayers of the people
outstripped the tardy orders of the church, and found expression in
their own plain and simple language. He was not forgotten 0 no,
he was not forgotten by his people ! If his reign had not been a
blessing ; or if the transient errors of his early life had not been for-
gotten ; or if his people had merely borne with him in the hope of
the future, would not their wish of change have been expensed ?
Would not something like pleasure have been manifested at
the idea of his removal ? Would the whole nation have clung
thus around the Throne of a King they disliked ? I con-
fess that to me it seemed as if something more than the
death of a mere mortal man were resting on that event. It
seemed to many families as though their bead were about
to be removed; to the whole nation as though their mediator, their
peace-maker, were about to be taken away. The lowest among us
seems conscious of some change ; we feel as it' we were on the edge
of some crumbling precipice. Each one seems to feel the ground-
swell of a coming storm, and to wish that he who had weathered so
many storms had remained with us as our pilot. Bet we must not
speak thus: we must not despair: we must still sally round the
throne, and do all we can to resist the consequences of the coming
storm. This discourse has not been written for the purpose of
tuba, or to answer any private end. It is to remind yogi
of the Importance of doing all you can as Christians, to
break the confederacy which is forming against the Lord
and his Anointed, and, at the same time, to remind you of
what is due to the memory of our departed Sovereign,
whose remains are this day to be consigned to the grave."—
Who of all these writers is the correct expositor of the state of
public feeling on this recent event ? How is History to distinguish
the true from the false? We will even give her the beneht of
Mr. Cobbett's contemporary labours. From the following announce-
ment in the Register of 10th July, it would appear that we shall
have a history of the late king from his pen, even more true than the
history of the Protestant Reformation : ' Peel says, ' We are too
near to the blessings enjoyed under his Majesty's mild and bent.
Scent sway to enable us duly to estimate them What, too near ?
Why, then, a man can judge best of a bottle of wine, I suppose, a
year or two after ice has drunk it. Poor Ogden, for instance, was,
while in the dungeon in Horsemongcr-lane, too near to Sid-,
mouth's blessings to be able duly to estimate them. The starving
Irish are too near to the blessings of beneficent sway ; and the poor
Queen was a great deal too near to the mild and beneficent treatment
which she received, to be able duly to estimate it. She should have
lived thirty or forty years longer, and then she would have bees
better able to judge of the real character of the proceedings against
her. A trial of any sort in a Court of Law must be much mere
likely to and in justice when the transactions to which it relates have
all taken place many years before. In short, this is the old ant of
the madly rabble of mercenary writers, who are hired to keep al.
lence while the facts are fresh in the minds of the people. " Tee
near," indeed ! How can the narrator of transactions and the de.
scriber of character be too near to the transactions and the
actors ? This is monstrous ! When a witness swears in refer-
ence to a written memorandum, he ought to be told that, to make
it good for anything, it must have been written long and long after dm
occurrences took place. Too near, indeed, to write afalse history, and
make it pass for truth ; but not too near to write a true history.—
There is something so monstrous in the idea that those of one geese.
ration are to write the history of those of another generation. I will
dissipate all this cant : if it please (ion to give me life and health, I
will drive this cant out of use ; this lying, cheating, this base ant ;
I will let the nation see that we are not a bit too near to the
blessings conferred by this King, to be able to estimate them. We
shall have lies enough about him : plenty of histories in praise of
him ; but from me, his memory will get that which will stick to
it." We cannot quit this subject without noticing the good
.rinse displayed by Mr. Irving in his allusion to the scandalous cha.
racier of the Court If from these tokens of his piety towards
God, I came to speak of his behaviour to his fellow men, I may
well ask, where shall we find such a model of courteousness ? He
exhibited the most perfect grace of manners : in him it was not a
mere fotm, but the attain mark of a genuine loving-kindness to all
his people. Hence he loved to witness the joy of his subjects,
and patiently bore with their rude applause. Not that he eagerly
sought such approbation, or that be was ever forgetful of the
respect which was due from all to his exalted station - for
while he manifested such amiable condescension, be coal, le
a moment, rouse all his Royal feelings, and rebuke and chase
ten those who presumed to trifle with his dignity. He was
well worthy to be the King of a free people ; he was brought
up among uv, end could bear with those boisterous ebullitions of
feeling which we so frequently indulge in, either from want of the
respect due to Majesty, or from the momentary and mistaken want
of loyalty. He was frequently assailed by the shafts of ca.
lumny ; and yet few have been able to shake them off with more
perfect good nature. Often have I pitied from my very heart
the situation of a King who could not enjoy the friendly society
of females without exposing himself to the most shameful
slanders. He nobly asserted and protected the honours of a free
press, at the same time that he had so much to bear from its as-
persions." This is speaking like a gentleman. We have always
thought it one of the worst traits in our national character, that
guilt should always be presumed when even age has destroyed the
fuel of the passions, and that to the other evils to which age is sub-
ject, it should be attempted to deny to it the solace of the kindness
which is alone to be found in female friendship. Mr. Irving take*
3 more liberal view of the matter. May he, when his athletic fain
no longer recommends him to female attention, enjoy as his reward,
the friendly female society which be so willingly conceded to his,
aged Monarch
Trans.—The Gazette de Frestee, the great supporta of Court
principles in France, contains, in its publication of Monday, which
arrived yesterday, another remarkable article on the course of po.
Hey required at the present crisis. This paper, along with tits
Cabinet and all its organs, assumes, that the address of the late
Chamber of Deputies, in expressing to the King Its want of coo.
tidence in his Ministers, was an attack on the prerogative of the
Crown, in which the selection of its servants is nested by the
charter. From this original error in 'methadone! doctrine
Proceed others still more dangerous, because they tend to make

the breach between the Crown and the national representation a
breach between the Crown and the national constituency. At first,
the Chamber only had declared its distrust of the Royal choice. His
Majesty, in the lawful exercise of his prerogative, dismissed that
Chamber instead of his Ministers, and appealed to the Mika to
confirm his decision. The nation, through its regular ilmeitudrne
for collecting the expression of the general will, liMsral Col
leges —has taken the part of their deputies, and deed their pee-
tart ;genet the Ministry. The Royalist journal darefore argue%
consecutively enough, that if the Crown was stripped of its power
to select its servants by a vote of the Chamber of Deputies, it Is now
plundered of its prerogative todissolve the Chamber by the votes of the
nation ; for the nation, by returning the same obnoxious members
whom the King had ismissed, has made the exercise of the preroga-
tive an unmeaning farce. After enlarging upon this inference, the
journalist proceeds to announce, that the Royal prerogative, which
has thus, according to his own account, been invaded by one of the
powers of the state, can alone save the representative government by
usurping the functions of the other two. By such reasoning is the
Crown urged to undertake the alarming experiment of altering those
national institutions to which it had just made so confident an ap-
peal; by such puerile sophisms, founded on false premises, are
die Ministers to be justified in retaining their places, though
at the hazard of a national convulsion; and by such expedients
is a party, which has just been proved to be in a decided
minority, to deprive the nation of the rights conferred upon it by
the charter, or to provoke a crisis in which the dynasty Itself may
be endangered ! In looking at the present situation of France and
the bordering kingdom of the Netherlands, we cannot but be struck
at the contrasted results produced in the course of a few months by
$ difference in the measures and presiding genius of Government in
the two countries. About six or seven months ago, all Belgium
was In a ferment of alarm and disaffection, arising, not so much
from any insult offered by the Administration to the people,
as from a jealousy against that portion of the nation to which
the Sovereign was supposed, from origin and religion, to be
most strongly attached. Every measure of the Government
was therefore opposed ; every suggestion of power was viewed with
suspicion, and factious violence seemed to prepare the way for trea-
sonable resistance. More than 300,000 petitioners addressed the
legislature, in language expressive of their alum for their national
rights and religious privileges ; and, in the popular chamber, the
budget was at first rejected by a Belgic majority. The Government
saw its danger, and instead of braving public opinion, or attempting
to overthrow the fundamental laws of the monarchy, endeavoured to
conciliate excusable opposition by timely concession. The budget
was withdrawn, and altered according to the sense of the majority ;
the bill, or project of law, on public instructimoras likewise withdrawn
in order to be modified ; the law on the press was greatly reduced in
its severity ; and the seasons which began in storms terminated in
serenity. The doors of the legislative chambers were no sooner
closed than the King, by an ordinance, abolished the galling de-
, cue which (for politic objects no doubt,) he had hemmed several years
sego, to impose upon the Belgians the use of the Dutch language.
The effect of these judicious concessions has been, to allay every
angry feeling against the Government, and to procure for his
Majesty an accession of loyal attachment mingled with grati-
tude. All the provinces which met last week in their amen.
bliss called provincial states, have testified their mains
is the paternal views and intentions of His Majesty. Them
assemblies, which elect the members for the second chamber
of the Beateireenersl,:hays, in renewing a third of the latter,
either returned the former deputies or candidates equally de-
voted to the monarch. In the Netherland legislature, therefore, the
government has gained rather than lost by the recent elections. And
now, to gratify the taste of a manufacturing and commercial people,
the government has opened the exhibition of works of useful art at
Brussels, and given the Belgians what they call their " festival of
industry . . In France we need scarcely point out how completely
this order of things has been reversed—how far discontent and die.
satisfaction have been increased, by a contemptuous disregard of pub.
lie opinion—and how fast that tempest seem gathering, which
was prevented or allayed by the more prudent concessions of the Belgic
Court. The appeal made to the nation has consequently returned
a more refractory Chamber, and even a striking military success,
sufficient at any other time to have gained thalami of a gallant
and vain-glorious race, as won for the Administration no more solid
than a sham victory at a military review. It is scarcely conceivable,
that with these facts before him, his Most Christian Majesty will
persist in maintaining his Ministry at the hazard of the public peace,
or that, though brave and bigotted, he will signalize his courage or
his zeal in resisting his people, and destroying the institutions of
his brother.