efore incorrigible. My mother told him the
other day how angry they were with him for what he had said, and
he only replied, 'Depend upon it, it was true.'

[Page Head: WEAKNESS OF THE GOVERNMENT.]

I saw a letter yesterday with a very bad account of the state of
Canada.[2] It was to Lord Lichfield from his Postmaster there, a
sensible man, and he describes the beaten Canadians as returning
to their homes full of sullen discontent, and says we must by no
means look upon the flame as extinguished; however, for the time
it has been smothered. On the other hand, there are the English
victorious and exasperated, with arms in their hands, and in that
dangerous state of mind which is the result of conscious
superiority, moral and intellectual, military and political, but
of (equally conscious) physical--that is, numerical--inferiority.
It is the very state which makes men insolent and timid,
tyrannical and cruel; it is just what the Irish Orangemen have
been, and it is very desirable that nothing like them should
exist elsewhere. All this proves that Durham will have no easy
task. It is a curious exhibition of the caprice of men's opinions
when we see the general applause with which Durham's appointment
is hailed, and the admiration with which he is all at once
regarded. Nobody denies that he is a man of ability, but he has
not greatly distinguished himself, perhaps from having had no
fair opportunity to do so. He has long been looked upon as a man
of extreme and dangerous opinions by the Conservatives, and he
never could agree with the Whigs when he was their colleague; to
them generally he was an object of personal aversion. Latterly he
has been considered the head of the Radical party, and that
party, who are not rich in Lords, and who are not insensible to
the advantage of rank, gladly hailed him as their chief; but for
the last year or two, under the alterative influence of Russian
Imperial flattery, Durham's sentiments have taken a very
Conservative turn, and, though he and the Radicals have never
quarrelled, they could not possibly consider him to be the same
man he was when they originally ranged themselves under his
banner. In public life the most that can be said for him is, that
he cut a respectable figure. When in office he filled the obscure
post of Privy Seal, and spoke but seldom. He was known, however,
to have had a considerable share in the concoction of the Reform
Bill. The only other public post he has