Star.
London, England, 1830-05-08 00:00:00

SONNET.

How fair the prospeet of existence seems
To youthful eyes!—how beautiful the
In flowers—and smiles—and sunshine !—Nature teems
With loveliness; the blandishments of art,
Engross the senses, and enchain the heart,
And on we dash, like gallant ship with sails unfurrd !
But alt ! the changes of a few short years,—
The toils—the disappointments—and the tears,
The burning tears, that down the manly cheek,
Furrowed by early griefs unbidden fall !
The struggles—yet of sorrows wherefore speak ?
For oh ! haw selfish—heartless—almost all
Of mankind are :—so live we !—one by one,
The visions of our youth—ere youth be fled are gone !

PORTUGAL.

From the Representanl.

After the excuses made on the subject of Terceira,
everybody asks, " Whence came the duty of neutrality at all ?"
Miguel had been sent to Portugal with the direct interference of the
British Government. lie had been feasted by the King and his
Ministers; and honourable men, of all arms, had been paraded be-
fore him, as if to make their several honours a pledge for his. Sup.
pose somebody, at that moment, had blurted out, " This man is a
rogue : the man you arc saluting has a lie in the corner of his
mouth. He is going to cheat Portugal, and you, and everybody.
It is a disgrace and a dishonour to have anything to do with him."
Would not the answer of those honourable men have been, " Life
Guards,—There's about ! Rump him.—Show him the tail. We
do not come here to salute cheats and rogues ; nor does anybody
mean to send us here to do it." Can any man deny that this would
have been the consequence, if it had been possible, at that moment,
to fix on the forehead of Miguel a representation of all he meant
to do, and, in the end, did actually do ?
Now, under such circumstances Is these,—after the man had done
everything in his !power to disgrace everybody who had committed
themrelves, by showing him any kindness and doing him any honour,
.and when the natural jealousy of all honourable men must neces-
sarily have been to give some proof, that, if they had assisted him,
they had, at all events, been deceived in him,—under such circum-
stances as these, whence came the obligation on the English Minis-
try to preserve neutrality at all g It might be a question for fur-
ther deliberation, whether they would make active war upon Mi-
guel for the discredit he had done the country that had encouraged
him; whether, for example, they would send a fleet and army all
the way to Portugal to help to put him down. But, leaving this
question for after consideration, whence came the obligattun not to
admit of, and encourage all manner of passive war, or such as could
be effected by merely giving scope to the operations of his enemies,
and leaving Miguel to come back to England M take vengeance, if lie
chose ? Put the case, that anything similar had happened in private
life—that one well-meaning gentleman had written to 'another—
" Here is a young man ; a very fine young man : I send him to
you by a ship of mine, which I have, in fact, fitted out entirely for
his accommodation. I have done everything I could for him here.
I recommend him to you with all my heart, and assure you he Ia a
very nice young man indeed." And suppose the young man so
sent, on his arrival had robbed the house, would the gentleman—
the sender—have said, " 0 dear, 0 dear, I am very sorry ; but you
know I must be neutral. If he has beaten any of your servants and
turned them out of the house, for GOD'S sake do not let them come
this way, for you know I cannot receive them. If they should come
here, and go back to try to get in at your kitchen window, I should
be obliged to fire upon them in the passage. For heaven's sake, re-
member my neutrality.: for all that's sacred, expect nothing from
me that will put me off' my neutrality." Let any person now
answer himself the plain question—lf one man, in private life, had
sent a stranger to another, who had turned out a rogue, who but a
rogue would think of standing upon such a neutrality as this ? It
might not be positively convenient to the first man to say, " I shall
jump into to-night's mail with my brace of pistols, and tome and
help you ;" but he would, at all events, say, " Anything you or
your friends can do for yourselves in these pans, I shall be bound
to promote; and, indeed, it is the only way I have to show the pub.
lie that I was not a partner, from the beginning, in the robbery
from which you have unfortunately suffered." This would be the
ease between private individuals; and, till some reason can be shown
for a difference, it must be held to be the case with Portugal.