The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-08-30 00:00:00

The Athenian of old, who spoke over the ashes 01

his countrymen fallen in their country's battle the fu.
neral oration—the national tribute to national worth—
spoke not for them, for their glory, and their survivors'
feelings; but for the nation, for public principle, and
for posterity. So, when the great oration which closed
the session of 1839 was pronounced by Lord Lynd-
hurst, it was not the mere portraiture of the miserable
Viscount who sat before him, to shame that selfish per-
sonage by the exhibition of his own distorted features,
but a stern lesson read to future Favourites, and a so-
lemn warning to a wilful and deluded people.
We learn a very instructive story too from the aid
which Lord Brougham rendered to the Debate. Not
only do we read in his pointed remarks, winged with
all the lightning of his forked eloquence, that the
wretched Viscount's agitated manner betrayed the se-
cret stings that were working at his heart. All this
we might have guessed, or have heard from an eye-
witness ; but it was far better to have it written down
in the Debate itself—to have it fastened upon the de-
linquent at the time—to have it branded upon his brow
in words and characters of flame. The words of this
grave denunciation did not pass him by "as the idle
wind, which he regards not," but as that torrid gale of
Eastern climes that leaves the mark of fire behind it.
But, comparing Lord Brougham's with Lord Lynd-
hurst's speech, we learn this further truth :—The de-
fence the irritated fribble tried to make, or, more pro-
perly, the sorry counter-charge to which he was forced
to resort, was a general and sweeping (not a circum-
stantial and particular) attack upon the Conservatives.
But here the wily ex-Whig had him on the hip.—
" Why then go, or pretend to go out, merely that they
might come in ?—why advise your Sovereign to send
for the Duke, and the Baronet,, and the learned Lord ?',
Out upon the idle pretence that hatred of Toryism is
the secret spring of all yOur tortuous devices ! Hatred
it is, not of Toryism, but of the Tories. The question
with your genuine Whig is no question of measures,
but only of men.
This then must be concluded :—lf Lord Melbourne
was in earnest when he pretended to retire—if he really
wished to be permitted to go out—then we have his
own unimpeachable testimony that Whiggery was no
longer the proper policy for the British Queen and
people—that the Court and the country required a
more steady and firm guidance—that, in short, the
great Conservative body, as it is the largest, the most
powerful, and the most respected in the Empire, ought
and must be entrusted with the reigns of power. If
he were not in earnest, he was a party to the basest
and most sordid intrigue recorded in the annals of
history.
What then shall we say ? For our own parts all these
arguments seem to us to lead to the conclusion which
we have so repeatedly urged upon our readers. We
believe that Lord Melbourne planted his Swiss around
the avenues of the palace,—closed every access to
sound opinion, or to interchange of feeling with the
people. By these acts he was successful in obtaining