The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-08-03 00:00:00

Riberpool :7-)tattbarb.

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

Monday Morning.
HOWEVER numerous are the demerits of that rabble com-
monly known and recognised as " HER MAJESTY'S
Opposition," and however anti-national they are in their
schemes, their aspirations, and their operations, it must
be confessed that they possess at least one English
quality in despite of themselves—that of not knowing
when they are beaten. They may repudiate British feel.
ings—they may scoff at the British lion—they may jest at
British supremacy—they may float the Union Jack, and
ridicule the " flag that braved a thousand years the
battle and the breeze"— they may withdraw all their
affections and cares for their own countrymen to lavish
them on foreigners, black, brown, and yellow—never-
theless they cannot get rid of that ineradicable JOHN
BULLISH quality of being ever unconscious of defeat. It
is, perhaps, the only thing truly English in its nature that
still adheres to them, and therefore they should get fair
credit for it. Let the faction have the benefit of this
solitary national gift, and let them transmit their name.

cg
to future times,
Linked to one virtue, and a thousand crimes."

No, they don't know when they are beaten, or at all
events they pretend they don't. They " assume the virtue
if they have it not," and they have recourse to the most
ingenious devices to persuade one another and the world
at large that they are the victorious party. They marshal
their forces with a rare genius for mystification, they mix
up friends and enemies, they juggle with figures, they play
thimble-rig with arithmetic, they twist the unfortunate
simple rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and
division into such complex contortions, that COCKER him-
self could not recognise them. By the same black art
which their great calculator, statist, and conjuror, MAC-
GREGOR made it appear on paper that the repeal of the
Corn Laws would save the country a hundred millions
sterling per annum. do they continue to make it appear
also on paper, that her MAJESTY'S Government will be in
a minority in the new House of Commons, and her MA-
JESTY'S Oppositinr in a triumphant majority. To be sure
they can't agree as to what the assumed minority will be ;
one sets it down at the small figure of four, and another
insists that it will be above a hundred—a pretty consider-
able margin it must be admitted—but all affect to believe
that somehow or other the Government will be short of
necessary supporters on the meeting of Parliament. It
would be a pity to destroy so agreeable an hallucination if
genuine, and so let us allow the simpletons to enjoy the
fancied victory until the hour shall come when the pleas-
ing assurance must he inexorably destroyed. 'We may
however venture a glance at the queer array of enemies
we shall have to encounter in the mellow month of October,
or, as is now probable, the cooler and more comfortable
month of November. Was ever before such a gang
of ill-assorted, repugnant, internecine fellows pressed into
our service I The sparrow and the hawk, the cat and the
mouse, the lamb and the wolf, all lodged in the same
tenement, present not a spectacle half so unnatural as
this forced collection of creatures of the most opposite
kinds, instincts, passions, and appetites. Only imagine
the presumptuous, pugnacious. irreverent bully BRIGHT
marching side by side in amity during the whole course
of along session with the modest, peace-loving, respectable
EVELYN DENISON ! Fancy that fierce little tiger-cat
ROEBUCK, the inveterate assailer of the Established
Church, and who would tear it to pieces with tooth and
claws if he could, and trample it under foot, fraternising
with the soi-disant pious Conservative GLADSTONE,
whose ambition is to establish a Church paramount to the

State, and to create a sort of Protestant Popedom in the

QuEEN's dominions ! Picture to yourself the foul-
mouthed BERNAL OSBORNE and Sir BENJAMIN HALL,
and MIALL, the Nonconformist, and Tom DUNCOMBE,
the Chartist, co-operating with HARRY GOULBURN,
with SIDNEY HERBERT, with Sir THOMAS DYKE
ACLAND, with Sir GILBERT HEATHCOTR ! Conceive the
idea of the fiery, faggot-burning, furious zealot LUCAS,
the recruiting-sergeant of the Roman Pontiff, laying
down his commission militant, and taking humble suit
and service under the excommunicated writer of the
famous Durham letter ! Figure to yourself DUFFY of the
Nation, the hero whose greatest boast is that he is a New-
gate bird of the blackest dye—the felon DuFFv—taking
" the base, bloody," and unconstitutional Whigs under
his wing, and protecting them from an ignominious end,
at the expense of his own manhood and rebel-reputation!
Fancy the nominees of Jony. of TUAM, PAUL CULLEN,
of the rabid murder-exhorting priesthood of Ireland—the
levellers of all that is established, the profaners of all that

is sacred—coalescing sincerely and working harmoniously
together with the respecters of the laws and with those
who reverence our holy institutions ! The idea of such a
combination is so preposterous, that the sane imagination

cannot compass it. Yet this is the combination with
which Lord DERBY is threatened. Such an opposition is
less substantial than a rope of sand—it will prove to be a
mere ignis fatuus, which will dissolve and vanish when-

ever it is approached and subjected to the test of the
senses. Already symptoms have appeared of discord and
dissolution among the heterogeneous rabble—the con-
spirators are already at each other's throats. Some, and
them the most respectable and independent, have pro-
posed to go over quietly to the side of Lord DERBY, be-
lieving him to be the only truly Conservative minister
now possible ; but this will not suit the crew who are
ravening for place and patronage. Others, perhaps the
most sincere and honest, insist upon openly declaring war
to the knife with the Government on the first day of the
session ; but this course does not find favour with the

Jesuitical rascals who prefer lying in wait and stabbing in
the dark to a fair stand-up fight. They cannot resolve
upon any plan of action, because they have no confidence
in each ; because, traitors to the cause of truth and jus-
tice and national honour, they will be traitors to each
other on the first opportunity that shall offer the chance
of individual advantage. _ _ _

The common Old Bailey device, when al else fails to
abuse your adversary, has been acted upon by pettifogging
Whigs, Radicals, and Mongrels during the week with a
vengeance; and the SECRETARY-AT-WAR has been the
principal recipient of all the Billingsgate vituperation and
slander that corrupt imaginations could engender, and
vile tongues utter. One palpable mare's nest has been
discovered at Derby by no less creditable a person than a
fellow who swears he is " cousin to the honourable mem-
ber for Athlone," alias BILL KEOGH, the leader of the
POPE'S brass band ; and a mare's nest that might, could,
would, or should have been found at Carlisle, has been
imagined by the creative fancy of the Right Hon.BARONET
of NETHERBY. The dramatic FIGARO, the übiquitous fac-
totum necessary for the working of these little pieces
of cunning invention, has been dug up in Shrewsbury,
and, with charming poetic propriety, he rejoices in the
suggestive name of " FRAIL." The virtuous public may
imagine the torrents of indignation, the Niagaras of filthy
abuse, that have been poured incessantly upon the de-
voted head of Mr. BERESFORD—the supposed "W. B."
of the plot—since these notable discoveries. But what

will the; virtuous public say, when they are told that
the Member for Athlone is prepared to swear he has
no cousin answering the description of the pretender at
Derby, and that the said pretender has very lately
made his exit from a lunatic asylum ? Why does not
Mr. BERRSFORD more expli,:itly deny than he has
done that he is the writer of the letter said to bear
the initials, W. 8., may be asked by some simple-
minded individuals. The answer is easy enough—be-
cause he does not choose to reply to every madman's
tale—because it is more amusing to let the plotters deve-
lope their slanderous machinations, and expose their
malicious designs, in order to overwhelm them more com-
pletely with ridicule and contempt. " Frail" will turn
out but a ricketty support to the villanous burlesque, of
which KEOGH of Derby is the original author, and GRA-
RAM of Netherby the paltry adapter. But from even this
piece of slanderous immorality, a moral may be extracted,
and that moral may be briefly written. It is :
" Frailty, thy name iS GRAHAM !"

Talking of the Secretary-at-War, reminds one that the
Editor of the Morning Chronicle has betrayed more
passion than discretion in denying, in the most positive
and discourteous terms, that he or any writer in his
Journal belongs to the same club as Mr. BERESFORD,
or that any one member of that or any other club indites
leading articles for the Chronicle. Any one who knows
anything of a London daily journal must know that the
leading articles are the productions of many minds and
hands, and that no editor, unless he were omniscient,
could tell whether or not the numerous contributions to
the paper under his direction belong to clubs or
not. But will the Editor of the Morning Chronicle
deny that the Hon. GEORGE SIDNEY SMYTHE—the
rejected of Canterbury—does not, or did not, write
leading articles for that journal ? I apprehend he is the
person to whom Mr. BERESFORD referred at the North
Essex banquet, when ho said he thought it too bad that
the man who occasionally sat on the same sofa with him
in his club-room, should turn the conversation and infor-
mation thus obtained to an unfair use, and then slander