Star.
London, England, 1830-04-23 00:00:00

comment by the Times, and of most inopportune banter
and unseemly levity by the Morning Journal—as if the
occasion were one which justified an idle quibble upon
the grammatical construction of a sentence, or it were
" a time to jest and daily now."—The laconism of the
Bulletin savours, it is true, of the camp, rather than
the study ; and would be more becoming the rescript of
a C.CSA u—the great Dictator of his day—than the offi-
cial communication of the most gifted disciple of HYPO-
CRATF.B but so long as it conveys to the hearts of a loyal
people the hope of having their beloved Monarch yet
spared to them, and his mild and benignant sovereignty
prolonged—for many years to come, we fondly trust !
shall we cavil with the phraseology in which the glad
tidings are conveyed to us,—and manifest our thank-
fulness to PRO V I DEN C E for the blessing thus graciously
extended, only by the cold and heartless display of critical
acumen, or censorial spleen?--Though brevity, we grant,
may be " the soul of wit," yet brevity and wit are
alike ill-timed, when a matter, so momentous in its present
effects, and in its future consequences, is involved. But the
painful suspense in which the Nation has been held, is
censurable in the last degree : and, as we hold that the
public feeling has been most unjustifiably disregarded—
if not sported with—by the unprecedented silence which
the Medical Attendants have, either of choice, or of com-
pulsion, observed during the most precarious period of
our good KING'S illness, so do we affirm, that the people
have a right to demand, through their Representatives,
a full and satisfactory explanation of all the causes in
which so unwarrantable a mystery had its origin. The
Times" fulminates" his indignation and his wrath,against
some occult agency by which the most intricate machi-
nery of the Royal Establishment is at once impelled and
controlled ; and ascribes to some " power behind the
Throne," both the alarm that—if his suspicions be well
founded—was, in the first instance, rashly and needlessly
excited, and the suspense in which the people have been
so wilfully and so blameably kept. If there be, indeed,
any " impenetrable circle, of which neither the centre
nor circumference is visible to the general eye of En-
glishmen," and by which the responsible advisers of the
Crown, and Ministers of the State,—those " who form
the link between the Sovereign and his people,"--ate kept
in ignorance of the actual state of the Kiwo's health ;
we must say that the sooner the magi. influence of such
a circle—however charmed it may be—is dispelled, the
better will it be for the dignity of the Monarch, and for
the security of his subjects.
If any attempt be made to delude the servants of the
Crown, or " to keep them in the dark," when the condi-
tion of the Km° is concerned,—an attempt which might
eventually endanger the interests of the nation,—Minis-
ters owe it to their own characters, considering the serious
responsibility imposed upon them, to exculpate themselves
from the imputation to which they must be exposed by
such an apparent abandonment, or neglect, of their duties
as their tacit asquiescence in the course lately pursued
would imply. Assuming the fact, that some occult
agency does exist,—we perfectly concur with the Times
In the opinion he has this day pronounced, that the se-
amy which has been observed, " is not honest, in the
first place, because the public have an undoubted right
to ascertain the situation of the Monarch. It is, in the
second place, very stupid, because mere secrecy will not
prolong the KING'S valuable life, and those creatures
whom the shield of the royal kindness now protects,
may be called to a searching and severe account
of the manner in which, being not officially responsible,
they exercise more than official power."—But may not
the Times be mistaken all this while ? May not persons
" officially responsible" have exercised more than " offi-
cial power ?" We own we entertain no such idea of the
Duke of WELLINGTON'S amiability of disposition, pla-
cidity of temper, or complacency of manner, as to imagine
that if, on such an occasion, the prerogative of the Pre-
mier were so interfered with, he would not take the most
prompt and effectual means to remove—or at least to
counteract, if he could not remove—the unwarrantable
and dangerous influence of any Court favourite who
should dare to interpose between the Monarch and his
, responsible advisers. We do not give the Duke of
WELLINGTON credit for such delicacy of feeling, or
squeamishness of purpose, as to suppose that he would, in
such a crisis, subject himself to the severe censure of the
country—to which he would become most deservedly ob-
by submitting for one moment to the slightest

nterference, in any quarter, with his own functions.

But it has been roundly asserted, that no slight portion
of the blame which justly attaches to this ill-advised
mystery, rests upon the gallant Premier himself. It has
been said—and the statement has not been controverted—

that the silence of the KING'S physicians was in obedience
to the absolute command of the military Minister. It
has been said—we use the words of a contemporary
—that " the Duke of WELLINGTON expressed his high
displeasure that the medical attendants upon the KING
should have presumed to issue a Bulletin respecting his
MAJESTY'S health, without having previously received
his Grace's commands ;" and that " the Noble Duke pe-
remptorily ordered all further Bulletins to be discon-
tinued." It has been said, and very currently believed,
that every official communication from the KING'S phy-
sicians, at Windsor, was peremptorily ordered to be ad-
dressed to Apsley House, the private residence of the
Duke of WELLINGTON, or to the Office of the First
Lord of the Treasury, in Downing-street,--a palpable
and unaccountable deviation from the established usage,
in compliance with which all such communications had
been heretofore invariably transmitted to the Secretary
of State for the Home Department.
If these statements be founded in fact, the Times
acts neither judiciously nor honestly in attempting to
shift the onus from the shoulders of his patron, upon
any " impenetrable circle " or occult agency ; neither
is it judicious or honest in him to put forth such a para-
graph as the following :—" We observe in the Court
Circular that the DUNE OF WELLINGTON visited the
KING yesterday at Windsor. This, we trust, implies