The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-11-11 00:00:00

Kiberpoot g:?tanbarb.

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

Monday Morning.
WHAT'S in a name ? There may be much, and there may
be very little ; it may be a substance, and it may be a
shadow ; it may be everything, and it may be nothing. In
the case of the President of the French Republic, the
name of Napoleon is a tower of strength ; in the case of
the Republic itself, it is a sox et prceterea nihil—the Re-
public by any other name would smell as sweet. We
have just had a prorogation of Parliament, not such an
imposing and magnificent ceremonial as the word would
imply, but a very sober, quiet piece of formality, devoid of
all state or splendour, but quite as effectual for its purpose
as if all the pomp of the nation had been displayed on the
occasion. Instead of the Queen's coming down in person,
accompanied by the Prince Consort, in his indispensable
jack-boots, and followed by all the great functionaries of
her household, headed by the beautiful Mistress of the
Robes, and by the Ministers of State, led by the gallant
old Duke, with his formidable sword ; and instead of a
Royal Speech, delivered to peers in their scarlet and er-
mine robes, to peeresses in their feathers and jewels, to
the House of Commons in its plenitude, and to a glittering
assemblage of faithful and elaborately-dressed subjects ;
a little, insignificant man, with a comical cocked hat stuck
on the top of his wig. came into the House of Lords, and
addressing the empty benches, and two sleepy-looking
clerks, who stood at the bar and represented the whole
body of the representatives of the people, informed them
that it was her Majesty's pleasure that Parliament should
be further prorogued to the 14th of January next. Then
bowing as ungracefully as it is possible to imagine to the
two clerks, who bowed half a dozen times in return, the
queer little man with the cocked hat vanished behind the
woolsack, and Parliament stood prorogued alcordingly.
The form of this ceremonial was as ludicrous as possible,
but the effect was as powerful as if all the solemnity of a
Royal presence was used on the occasion. So we are not
to have the bore of long senatorial debates and stupid
speeches till after the 14th of January, nor, I presume,
till the usual talking time, the first week in February.
There must be another prorogation, when a day will be
fixed for what is facetiously termed " the dispatch of pub-
lic business," on the principle of hens a non lucendo.
The friends of the present administration in general,
and of Lord Clarendon and Sir William Somerville in par-
ticular, are in awful perturbation, indignation, and ex-
citement, on account of the pecuniary demand made by
Birch, of the World newspaper, in Dublin, upon the
Irish Secretary, for payment of services rendered of a
very peculiar and interesting kind. Birch has bad his rod
in pickle a long time; it is well-seasoned, and he seems
resolved to lay it on with all his might. Seven thousand
pounds is a nice round solid sum to get in return for
empty words, for hollow declarations, for inflated periods,
and for unmitigated balderdash. But Birch thinks that a
labourer is worthy of his hire ; and I think that, in this
instance, the labourer was worthy of his hire, and that
Birch and his hirer were well matched—par nobile fra-
trurn. The work required was dirty, the jobs that were
to be perpetrated were numerous and d'fficult ; the ser-
vices to be rendered demanded a strong elastic conscience,
and the expenditure of an enormous amount of lying, of
abuse, of deception, in short, all the appliances requisite
for a thick-and-thin supporter of a ricketty and unpopular
admininistration. Birch laboured, as he says, night and
day ; he covered the faults of the Government with the
shield of his rhetoric, he invented excuses for their follies,
he " ballyragged" all who said a word in condemnation of
their policy, he was their champion at all times and places,
and ready to take up their cause and fight a l'outrance
with all corners—he was

Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer.
It may be thought that the advocacy of the World, of
Dublin, damaged, rather than benefited, her Majesty's