quently together they did not fully represent the existing mind of the community; and this desideratum gave rise to the establishment of the "Westminster Review," under the auspices of Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, Dr. Bowring, and Sir William Molesworth. Further than into three - two extremes and an intermediate - few things can be subdivided without degenerating into mere sectarianism, vanishing points, or self-destructive refinements. Each Quarterly had its mission, and of course its special obliquities of vision; but their tripartite views of men and things have corrected and neutralised their dominant tendencies or shortcomings in Politics, Philosophy, and Letters, by which the grand jury of the public has been better enabled to arrive at just conclusions on vexed topics and inquiries. They have been a recreative as well as useful intellectual treasure; and from the position and private histories of the parties now known to have been connected with them, they have contributed to elevate the literary caste itself into higher social consideration. They did not, however, fill the entire field of Literature. Lighter and more evanescent troops skirmished on the flanks of the Quarterlies. George the Fourth's regency and reign was, indeed, redolent of everything grave and gay. It was ennobled by history and science, but not unadorned or unenlivened by poetry, criticism, works of imagination, and the productions of the fine arts. Hallam, Lingard, Mackintosh, Roscoe, Palgrave, Landor, Disraeli, Walter Scott, Thomas Moore, Byron, Crabbe, Maria Edgeworth, Elliott, Hogg, Baillie, Southey, Coleridge, Campbell, and Montgomery, are enduring names that would shed lustre on any age. In essay and sprightly periodical writing, Hazlitt, Lamb, Horace and James Smith, Leigh Hunt, Wilson, Lockhart, and Maginn shone MUSIC AND THE ITALIAN OPERA. 655 conspicuous, and completed, with other auxiliaries, the intellectual array of a brilliant period. Music rose into an intoxicating passion, and Mr. Wilberforce deplored its bewitching fascinations, from being taken by the higher classes in early concerts as a morning dram. Madame Catalani was the great bird of song. With her imperial voice and imperious execution, this powerful cantatrice swamped the orchestra and all stage accompaniments, herself sole queen. But her reign was brief; she surprised more than pleased, and the novelty over, she was discovered to be an untunable autocrat, with an "odious husband constantly in her train."* Spectacle and show continued to gain on the classical drama : newly fashioned in manner and costume, it had flourished under David Garrick; culminated in grandeur of scenery and action under the Kembles; but towards the close of the present period began to decline became less and less the mirror of life; and its brains were knocked out, in common with the Italian Opera, in which the poetical expression of sense or sentiment was lost in melody or screams, or a "sound so fine that nothing lives 'twixt it and silence." Metre without meaning, or nonsense verses in university fashion, were held most compatible with good musict; or songs might be made to notes only, without words, after the manner of Mendelssohn. This can hardly be held to have been progress; it is the sensuous gaining on the spiritual, and the human voice made no more expressive of the inward spirit than a Pan's pipe or stringed instrument. But the transition may probably be traced less to a depravation or loss of genuine taste, than to change of social habits. After banqueting on champagne nearly * Memoirs and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, vol. i. p. 255. † Memoirs of the Opera, p. 214. till midnight, only vivid entertainments are likely to be impressible, and scenic illusions, or the poetry of motion, be most apt to the excited senses and obfuscated intellect. In Painting there was advancement. The Angerstein Collection of thirty-seven pictures was bought by government for 37,000l., and, with Sir George Beaumont's munificent contribution of rare works, became the nucleus of a National Gallery. This was better than in Pitt's time, who begrudged the most trifling amount from war expenditure for a Tintoret or Paul Veronese. But it was a peculiarity in the organism of this minister, which he shared with Mr. Canning, that neither had any sympathy for the most finished productions of the pencil. * Mr. Pitt was offered the Pitti Gallery for a few thousands, but would not reduce the "navy one middy for a Medicean Venus.” Quarterly Review, Dec. 1850. CHAPTER XXXI. REFORM ERA UNDER WILLIAM IV. Principle of Permanence in Royal Dynasties.-Identity of Character and Fortune in the Stuarts and Bourbons. - Paris Insurrection and Expulsion of Charles X.-A General Movement in the Continental Capitals; its Effect on England. - Resignation of the Duke of Wellington, and Establishment of the Reform Ministry. — Introduction of the Bill for Parliamentary Reform; its Reception in the Commons. -Dissolution of Parliament; Reform Bill re-introduced, and carried, but rejected by the Lords. - A Reform Bill a third Time brought forward; the Lyndhurst Motion carried; Ministers resign; and are recalled on the Failure to form a Tory Ministry.Intervention of the Crown to carry the Reform Bill.-Meeting of the Reformed Parliament; its splendid Legislation; Abolition of West India Slavery; Renewal with Amendments of the Charters of the East India Company and Bank of England; Reform of the Poor Laws and Municipal Corporations. Commutation of Tithes. - New Marriage Act. Foreign Policy; Severance of Belgium and Holland; Intervention in Favour of Turkey.-Division in the Cabinet; the Appropriation Clause; Retirement of Earl Grey.—Dismissal of the Reform Ministry; Popular Excitement; Ministry of Sir Robert Peel; Progress in Liberalism; Failure of the Peel Ministry, and Formation of the Melbourne Cabinet.-Lord Brougham.-Conciliation of Ireland; Orange Lodges discountenanced; Improvements in the Magistracy, Grand Juries, and internal Navigation.-General Prosperity of the Empire.-Death of the King and of eminent Public Characters. - THE emotions arising from the external objects perceptible by the senses are mutable and fleeting impressions; but the deeper affections of the heart, and the associations of the intellect, are fixed and more enduring. It is only in the former that man can be considered a changeful being; in the ties and sympathies which grow up with UU him from childhood, and in the principles and conclusions resulting from experience, reflection, and constant intercourse he is exemplary for faith and loyalty. They form his code of life, and daily routine of conscious existence; and if severed from them he feels deprived of his accustomed aliment, guidance, and wonted sources of security and contentment. It is to the less changeable attributes of human nature that may be traced the permanence which has mostly signalised the laws, institutions, and ruling dynasties of mankind. Their authority and indestructibility have been derived from length of time, constant familiarity, tradition, and from being the inheritance of many succeeding generations. Hence has arisen the perpetuity of the royal and imperial families of Europe, and which have mostly been coeval in duration with their respective nationalities. Nations have clung to them as they are wont to cling to the primitive mountain range or river frontier which prescribes their territorial boundaries; or as private persons cling to cherished heirlooms, the paternal mansion or domain transmitted by remote ancestors. There is only one, or at most two, of the old regal houses of Europe which have been entirely uprooted and cast aside, and whose return appears irreversibly foreclosed by the will of the peoples they governed. The Stuarts have wholly disappeared, and may be reckoned among the extinct races of royalty; but the Bourbons continue to have representative branches, whose future destiny it would be rash to pronounce upon. In the fortunes of these two celebrated monarchical houses, whose histories fill so large and diversified a page of the European annals, certain identities may be remarked in the facts that both were dethroned by the most advanced communities of the world, and that the disruption with both was a reluctant one, and only became final after |