Star.
London, England, 1831-06-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE JOUR:V.4LS.

TIMES.—We beg to invite the public attention to a de.
claration against the Reform Bill, signed by certain parties
in the county of Stafford, which has been advertised in the
columns of some contemporary journals. Of the force and
effect of such declarations, we have had a pretty fair exam-
ple in those two or three counties in which they had been
gotten up before the recent dissolution. Id all those in-
stances what followed ? Why this: that in spite of the
flourishing display of titled, clerical, and other high-sound-
ing names, their potency vanished, either in the contests that
ensued, or in the general acclamations amidst which the
members who had been their champions were, without con.
tests, driven from the field, wherever they were indiscreet
enough to offs to offer to the public a renewal of their ser-
vices. So much for the value of such declarations in ge-
neral, when weighed against the public voice.
HERALD.—We always considered the entire im-
partiality, shown to the press of the Metropolis, and re-
linquishment of that paltry favouritism, which have before
existed in the public offices, to be one of the great merits of
the Duke of Wellington's Administration. The Courier,
who, it is well known, long ago, felt cut on the occasion, has
been adducing this independence of the press as a fault to the
late Administration. In the Herald we find the following
manly and correct observation on the subject:—ln every sta.
don of society it is in a man's own power to make himself
respectable ;—but the writer in the Cottrier:greatly nifinakes
what constitutes respectability if he supposes that its " out-
ward and visible sign" is an acknowledge fitness for what he
calls the half-educated, fop-civilived, people of high life." Dr.
Franklin, we suspect, wanted in his day that teat of respecta-
bility ; lie was a printer by trade, a patriot by principle, and the
glorious sins of a f'ree Press, struggling for the improvement
and liberties of his countrymen against the oppressive Stn.
totes and menacing bayonets of the oligarchy of England,
lay heavy on his name ; but his masculine virtue was strong
enough to bear the burden, sod, if the " vulgar great"
of this day did not court his society, neither did tie court
theirs. Ile worked the great engine of opinion to their
discomfiture. Their memories have perished, or have been
preserved on the page of history only to be despised ; while
his name is, and ever will be, associated with the imperish.
able recollections of the triumphs of knowledge and virtue
over ignorance and oppression. Swift, and Addison, and
Steele, and Johnson and Goldsmith, and many other writers
of distinguished name, were contributors to the periodical
press in their day, and none of those persons ever thought
himself peculiarly honoured by being asked into the com-
pany; of the " half:educated, fop-civilized, people of
high life." They certainly never would have regarded
exclusion from such society as a grievance, or have
thought themselves degraded by not being placed upon a
level with such persons. It is true those were men of ge-
nius; but it is not want of genius, but want of integrity and
worth in those who are connec:ed with it, that can ever
make the Press contemptible. If the Press ever becomes
slavish to power and forgetful of principle, it may be warmly
patronized but it cannot be respected, by those who make
use of its services. The idolaters of mere power,
rank, or wealth, may complain of not being held in
very high consideration by the lofty personages whose
smiles they propitiate by the incense of servile adulation ;
but they divest themselves of all the dignity which
the manly sense of independence confers, and are
treated accordingly. The purest government which it is
possible to establish in the world could not make the Press
more respectable than it can make itself,—nor could the worst
sink it in the estimation of the public without its own co-
operation.—Venality—grossness of taste—traffic in private
scandal—scurrility of language--a weathercock versatility of
principle—may bring the press into contempt ; but if con-
ducted so as to instruct and improve mankind, and to realize
the proper objects of a " great engine of moral power," it
may despise the efforts of any oligarchy to degrade it. Their
influence may be great, but there is no authority connected
with prejudice or ignorance that can loos resist the power of
enlightened opinion.

POST.—The question, what will the Housed Lords do
upon the subject of Reform, meets us in every quarter; it
is the leading topic of conversation and of argument in every
societ7 and in every corner of the land. The answer to this
quesuon cannot surely be difficult or hasardous, at least in
the esthr.ation of those who believe with us, that the Peerage
of England, as a body, will do what it ought to do. There
is, we have not the least doubt, a complete conviction in
the minds of 999 men out of every 1000 of those who are
perpetually asking the question, that a large majority
of the British Peerage are, upon principle, decidedly averse
to any violent change in the institutions of the State. If
this be so, the question would appear in this very large ma.
jority of instances to amount to nothing leas than a direct
insult to the House of Peers. The House of Lords are
averse to any great change in the institutions of the
country. Such a change is threatened. What course
then can the House of Lords pursue, in the judgment of
any man who does not believe their Lordships to be the
proper objects of insult and contempt, but to proclaim
their aversion to violent change—to avow it distinctly,
to their Sovereign and their country, on the very first
day of their deliberations ? It is not the duty of the House
of Lords to pronounce a premature judgment upon any arses.
sure. It is not their duty to approve or to condemn, by
anticipation, this, that, or the other bill, which they may
expect to Se sent up to them from the other House of Par.
liament ; but it is plainly their duty, in the circumstances
of the present day, if they are sincerely and conscientiously
averse to any sweeping and radical change of the Constitu-
don of England, to put an end at once to the possibility of
misapprehension or mistake as to their sentiments, by de-
claring, in their address to the King, at the commencement
of the Session, that they hold any change of this description
to be unnecasary, dangerous, and pernicious.
HERALD.--We sincerely trust the Belgian Minister
will continue in the firm tone he hitherto held, and that the
bravery and nationality of the Belgians will shortly receive
the reward of their perseverance. An arrangement, which
thus saves Belgian honour, whilst it contrives to adhere to
the main requisitions of the Protocols, is a happy middle
course, and we hope that it will prove as stable as it for the
present looks unobjectionable.

Their Majesties entertained the Duke and
Duchess of Cumberland, the Princess Augusta, and a select
party, at dinner, on Wednesday evening, at St. James's
Palace. The Duchess of Cumberland and the Duke of
Gloucester visited their Majesties yesterday, and partook of
a dejeune with the Queen. Her Majesty, accompanied by
the Duchess of Saxe Weimar, took an airing in the after.
noon, and visited the Duchess of Kent and the Princess
Sophia at Kensington Palace. In the evening the Land.
gravine of Hesse Homburg, the Duke and Duchess of Cum.
berland, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Princess Augusta,
and Earl Grey, dined with the King and Queen.
Prince Leopold gave a grand dinner last evening,
at Marlborough House, to the Deputation from Belgium.
The Duchess of Cambridge, accompanied by
Prince George, and the Princess Augusta of Cambridge,
paid visits, yesterday, to the Duchess of Kent, the Duchess
of Cumberland, and the Princess Augusta, at their respec-
tive residences.

Prince Leopold had an interview with Viscount
Palmerston yesterday afternoon, at the Foreign-Office.--
Prince Talleyrand and others of the Foreign Ambassadors
and Ministers had afterwards a conference with the Noble
Viscount.

Earl Grey entertained the Cabinet Ministers at
dinner on Wednesday evening, at his residence in Downing.
street. Lord John Russell, to whom a seat In the Cabinet
has recently been assigned, dined with the Ministers.
Lord Ponsonby had long interviews both with
Earl Grey and Viscount Palmerston on Wednesday.
The Belgic Deputation had a conference yester-
day with Viscount Palmerston.
An extraordinary courier arrived yesterday fore-
noon, at the residence of the Russian Embassy. The des.
patches were immediately forwarded to Prince Lieven, at
Richmond.
Lord Palmerston gives a grand diplomatic dinner
party to-day, at which, we believe, the Deputation from
Belgium will be present.
A Jew from Strasburg has written to the princi-
pd horse-dealers, that he has undertaken to perchase for the
French Government 5,000 hones, and that he expects to
obtain them at the old rate of prices before the former pur-
chases were interrupted.
The Kling of Denmark has forwarded, through
his Ambassador, a donation of 1001. to the Salmon's
Floating Hospital.
Messrs. Devaux and Nothonel, the Belgian ne-
gotiators, with the 10 dcties who accompanied them,dined
yesterday with the Prince Leopold. Lord Ponsonby
was also present. It was understood that some definitive me.
rangement of the Belgian question would be made before the
party broke up.