n the monarchy in the field, or stabbing its
friends in their chambers. You have it, at once the emblem of rebellion
and assassination. Those are the arguments of the new school--those are
the instruments by which the limbs of the state are to be amputated, for
replacement by the inventions of the revolutionary mechanists. Those are
the keys by which the locks of cabinets and councils are henceforth to
be opened, and the secrets of national wealth laid bare to the rapacity
of the rabble." After this speech nothing was listened to.

The debate had been prolonged through the greater part of the night, and
yet such was the interest felt in its subject, that the streets in the
neighbourhood continued crowded to the last. All the hotels and
coffee-houses were filled with people waiting for the division. Groups,
with lighted torches, were lingering everywhere, and passing the
intelligence along, as a member happened casually to make his appearance
in the course of the night; shouts and expressions of wrath alternately
arose, according to the nature of the intelligence, and a species of
open-air legislature was held during one of the bitterest nights of
winter, with discussions as active, though perhaps not altogether so
classical, as those within; yet totally free from tumult, and in the
spirit of a people who live with a constant reference to the laws. The
rush of the members to the porch, on the breaking up of the debate,
produced a corresponding rush of the multitude. Public curiosity was
roused to its wildest height--every public sentiment had its full
expression; and whether the acclamation was louder when Fox's corpulent
frame was seen toiling its slow way through the pressure, or when Pitt's
slender figure and passionless face was recognised, is a question which
might have perplexed the keenest investigators of popular sentiment. All
was that uproar in which the Englishman delights as a portion of his
freedom.

On returning to my chamber, exhausted, yet animated with a new sense of
the value of existence in such a country, and of the noble faculties
which she carried in her bosom, I saw a large packet on my table. I
gazed on its envelope for a few moments with that strange emotion which
sometimes makes us dread to open the very letter which we most desire to
receive. It was obviously from Downing Street. At last I opened it. It
contained my commission in the Guards!

My destiny was now fixed, and it is impossible to