whether lending libraries, not confined to the girls who have been ill, such as are common in the factories of the United States, would not be very popular among this class and produce much good. Attached to the hospital above proposed should be a dispensary, where medical advice should be given, and medicines furnished to such as are not sufficiently ill to leave their work. The machinery of such an institution would be very simple, and the sympathy of the British public would not be in vain appealed to for its support. At the house of business itself a considerable change in the present system is absolutely necessary. Sunday should be a day of rest to the girls. It would be desirable, if possible, that one of the show-rooms should be cleared on the Saturday night, and given up entirely to them for their use and recreation on the Sabbath. The mistress should see, as far as her power extends, that her apprentices and improvers go to divine service; or, at all events, she ought to provide for them a pew in some neighbouring church, where those who were desirous of attending might do so. As before mentioned, the mistress's table should be as open to such as have no friends to visit on that as on any other day. There might even be on that day a little improvement in the dinner. An indulgence of this sort would make them feel less anxious to get out, and what now often occurs would be less common, namely, that they are quite as much, if not more fatigued and exhausted on the Sunday night, than on any other night in the week. It would be very desirable that morning and evening prayers should be offered daily in each house of business, the whole establishment being present. Independently of its good moral effect, this practice would tend greatly to regularity and order. Each girl, on her first arrival, should be expected to bring with her a Bible and Prayer-book. For meals a certain period should always be allowed. At present the girls are often obliged to rise from dinner almost before they have finished it, and to return immediately to the work-room. This is not one of the least causes of the indigestion and nausea from which they often suffer. An interval of twenty minutes or half an hour after

the principal meal ought, compatibly with health, to occur, before they sit down again to their work. During their absence in the dining-room, the apartment where they have been working should be well ventilated. There is an objection often made to the windows being opened, that the dresses or bonnets will spoil by the admission of air or damp; but this might easily be avoided by their being covered up. When the ventilation has been complete, the apprentice will feel greatly refreshed after her meal, even without exercise, and apply herself to her work with a feeling of lightness, which she would be quite a stranger to if the atmosphere were unchanged. Gas should never be admitted to the work room; it is scarcely ever so now, except where there is a shop attached to the business. Cleanliness of the person is so conducive to bodily health, that it seems scarcely necessary to urge it as indispensable to the young workwoman. This is a point on which every mistress, it appears, is very particular.

Cold ablutions, and the use of the flesh brush, particularly on rising in the morning, will greatly assist the circulation, and prove the best substitute for exercise. The importance of the skin secretions has been as yet scarcely attended to sufficiently by the physician, and yet the skin is an organ, on the state of which, especially in our variable climate, the health materially depends. An occasional use of the warm-bath would be one of the best restoratives and safest stimulants that the young milliner could resort to. When at work, she should, if possible, not continue very long in the same position, standing on every opportunity, and avoid all tight ligatures round the body, particularly tightly laced stays, which often of themselves occasion great derangement to the health. How much more so when the person who wears them is obliged to maintain so long a stooping position? The French women when at work wear their stays much looser than the English, and, consequently suffer less inconvenience. The food supplied should be simple, but of the most nourishing quality; above all, it should not be always of the same description. The capricious appetite sometimes fancies coffee or

cocoa

when it rejects tea; sometimes has a relish for soup or broth when it is disinclined to solid food. In the absence of much exercise it will be found absolutely necessary, to the maintenance of any thing like health, to vary the dishes. We should not be understood to mean that the inmates of a house of business should have luxuries, but merely that the nature and ingredients of their food should be occasionally changed. Great attention should be paid to the apartments where the girls sleep; these should be thoroughly ventilated and kept clean; the number of females sleeping in one room should not exceed four. A reform in many of these apparently insignificant matters would enhance greatly the comfort and alleviate the physical sufferings endured by the apprentice. Let those who are disposed to laugh at some of the above recommendations as frivolous, reflect that there is no circumstance so trifling as not to derive value from the consideration that it detracts from the misery of a fellow creature.

It is time to draw this article to a close, protracted already to a considerable length. Imperfect as it is in the catalogue of the evils it attempts to describe, and incomplete in the remedies it suggests, enough at least has been said to shew that the case is not altogether a hopeless one and incapable of amelioration. We would not conclude our remarks, however, without a few observations to the young milliner herself, as well as to the mistress who employs her. To the former we would say: 66 Remember you have duties to perform, as well as rights to assert; shew by

your conduct that you are not unworthy of the sympathies which have been enlisted in your behalf. Endeavour to win the confidence and approbation of your employer by doing the work allotted you in the best and neatest manner you can. Be as diligent in her absence as in her presence. Be meek and gentle in your temper; pay a ready obedience to her orders; if any indulgence is shewn you, do not abuse it; and above all, forget not your religious duties; they will not only brighten and cheer the gloom of your daily daily toil, but they will strengthen you against those temptations which will frequently be thrown in your way."

To the employer our advice is: "Reflect that it is no small responsibility you have undertaken. The future conduct and happiness of the young women under your charge depend in a great measure upon you. Do not consider that they are under your roof for the single purpose of assisting to make you rich. While you enforce a rigorous discipline in the work-room, neglect not entirely the moral discipline of their minds. In your treatment of them, let that golden rule of Christianity, 'Do ye unto others as ye would they should do unto you,' guide and direct you. And while you expect from them steadiness of conduct and rectitude of principle, remember, that what we sce makes a far more vivid impression upon us than what we hear, and that example is more powerful than precept. Let your pupils, for so they may be called, learn to look up to you as a model for their virtuous imitation, and respect you as a friend."

66

IN a debate some few years ago in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Peel excited considerable merriment by calling Lord Palmerston a pure old Whig." The expression was felt to be an equivocal one. It might be taken as an ironical allusion to the ostentation with which the noble lord then paraded what he termed "Whig principles " before the House,-principles which he, at that time, adhered to with the tenacity, and propounded with the zeal, proverbial in recent converts; or, still in the same spirit of quizzing, the right honourable baronet might have meant to allude to the weight of authority which the noble lord added to any intrinsic truth there might be in the political views referred to; because, from the opportunities he has had of testing the opinions of other political parties of which he has, during his long life, been a member, his preference for

Whig principles" might be held to be the result of settled conviction. There was still another sense in which the sly humour which dictated the phrase might have designed it to apply to the noble lord.

The sexagenarian juvenility of Lord Palmerston has been the subject of much good-humoured raillery. The public are already sufficiently familiar with the somewhat stale jokes which the newspapers have for some time applied to the noble lord, because they have chosen to assume that he, more than most men, sacrifices to the Graces. Lord Palmerston is too respectable, both in talents and character, to be affected by such harmless nonsense; more especially as it is, in point of fact, founded on error. Nor should we here so particularly refer to the subject, but that not only in his outward man, but also in his mind, the noble lord certainly does reverse some of the usual laws of Nature. Although from early youth he has been, in some capacity or other, before the public, and, during the greater part

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CXCV.

of the time, in the service of the state, it is only of late years that he has "come out " either as a statesman or as an orator. Perhaps this may have arisen from constitutional indolence, yet the restless activity of his subsequent ministerial career almost forbids the assumption. It may have been because he did not desire to thrust himself prominently before the public while he still occupied a position in the senate, or filled situations in the government comparatively subordinate; but a reference to Hansard will shew that at no time was the noble lord deficient in a characteristic propensity for self-display, although his efforts in parliament for many years scarcely distinguished him from the ordinary herd of level speakers. Like the blossoming of the aloe, the parliamentary fruition of his genius, though long delayed, is marvellous. Few, indeed, are the men who, after passing through a youth and manhood of indifference, apathy, or, at the utmost, of persevering mediocrity, could, long after the middle age has passed, after the fire of life might be supposed to be almost exhausted, blaze out, like the sacred flame on the altar of the fire-worshipper, at the very moment of decay. In this respect, as in many others, Lord Palmerston is a puzzle. He has begun where most men end. Long passed over and forgotten by Fame, he suddenly recalls her, and arrests her in her flight, compelling her to trumpet forth his name. Not even recognised as a statesman, but classed among the Red Tapists; as a speaker ranked with the steady-paced humdrums; he was almost the very last man in the House of Commons on whom one would have fixed as being likely ever to rival Lord John Russell in the leadership of the Whig party. Suddenly, without apparent cause, without its being discovered that he had become possessed of the elixir of life, he astonished his contemporaries by

Y

the display of a vigour which neither his youth nor middle-age had shewn ; he entered the lists alike with the veterans and the young, ardent spirits of the House of Commons, proving himself a very master of the art which he had thus with so tardy a haste essayed, and raising himself to a level with the very best speakers, nay, even ultimately rivalling Lord Lyndhurst himself in the ability and power with which he used the ordinary weapons of party for the annoyance of his foes. Like the sleeping prince in the fairy tale, although by the influence of the spell half an age had passed over his bodily frame, the fire and energy of his early days remained.

The heat, the vigour, even the rashness of youth, were in him most strangely combined with the authority and experience of more advanced years. The hero of Godwin's romance did not more secretly or more instantaneously discard the crust of time. It is told of Mathews, that one of his most pleasing pastimes was-suddenly, chance wise-to mingle with any group of boys, asking to join in their play; when he would, by the force of his rare genius for imitation, throw himself completely into the childish character, romp with them, laugh with them, cheat with them, quarrel with them; till, although they could not at first quite fraternise with the very tall stranger, they gradually began to look on him as less unlike themselves, and, at last, admitted him to the full rights of companionship. Similar, one may suppose, were the feelings of the leading men of the House of Commons, when Lord Palmerston, after having wilfully hid his powers so long, burst out upon them as a first-rate speaker. It took them some time to believe it possible, but gradually their incredulity gave way under the proofs of his ability and vigour, and they now acknowledge to the utmost of their admiration the mistake which they, in common with the noble lord himself, had made during so many years. Like some diseases, Lord Palmerston's oratorical and political talent was chronic; it required time for its developement.

All things taken into account, Lord Palmerston is, perhaps, the best debater among the Whig leaders of the House of Commons. In the

different qualities which, when combined, go to render a man an orator, he is excelled by many individuals among his contemporaries. Lord John Russell shews more tact, more intimate acquaintance with party history (not with parties, for, in that knowledge, Lord Palmerston beats all men living, having been a member of almost every government within the memory of man), greater skill in pointing allusions to the political errors of opponents, and altogether more refinement in the management of his parliamentary case. In eloquence, both of conception or in delivery, Lord Palmerston is, of course, excelled by Mr. Sheil or Mr. Macaulay, and even by men holding a far inferior rank as speakers. In soundness and vigour of argument he cannot stand a moment's comparison with Mr. Cobden or with Earl Grey (when that nobleman does justice to his own powers), or even with Mr. Charles Buller. Each speaker on his own side, in fact, is in advance of him in some particular quality of the orator. Yet no one would for a moment hesitate to place Lord Palmerston amongst the first speakers in the House of Commons, or would deny that he had derived from hearing one of that nobleman's speeches as much pleasure, of its kind, as if he had listened to the most brilliant efforts of Macaulay, the most spirit-stirring of Shiel, or the most skilful and satisfying of Lord John Russell. The peculiarity in Lord Palmerston which gives him this singular power of charming with an oration as a whole, the several parts of which are not calculated to please, if critically analysed, is the thorough and hearty spirit of partisanship, not malignant, or angry, or mean, as is that of most zealous advocates of embodied opinion or interests, but frank, manly, openhearted, and undisguised, so much so as to assume almost a sportive character, as if parliamentary politics were a mere pastime, a kind of relaxation from the heavier cares or labours of administration or of ordinary political life, in which all men are bound by a sort of mutual compact, answering to the laws of a game, to exert their utmost powers to excel or to overcome each other, for the sake of the distinction and ap

plause which are the reward of suc

cess.

This peculiarity must always be borne in mind in forming our opinion of the noble lord. He takes up political questions in parliament in the true forensic spirit, but also with much of that interest which an advocate feels, not so much in the fate of his client as in the success of his own efforts. Lord Palmerston appears to feel in a less degree the importance of" Whig principles" than the advantage of a triumph for the Whig party, and for himself as a member of the party. In this he differs from Lord John Russell, who ministers to party feeling only so far as it is identified with the principles which he considers ought to regulate him. Lord Palmerston, if he is one of the most ready, facile, clever, adroit, among the leaders of the Whigs in either House, appears also to be one of the least earnest. His politics are as a garment, worn because it is thought to be the most becoming. As far as it is possible to divine the motives of public men, hidden as they sometimes are for years under accumulations of almost necessary deceit, this appears to be the ruling tendency of Lord Palmerston's public character. On one subject alone is he always terribly, inconveniently in earnest-the praise of his own foreign policy. However artificial may be his advocacy on other questions, however he may, when he is determined to make a good party speech, spur himself out of the languor which seems to be his habit of body if not of mind, no such aids to his energy are required when the doings of Viscount Palmerston, sometime her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, are concerned.

But of this more hereafter. Lord Palmerston, in a very good speech-a sort of summary of the session, à lu Lord Lyndhurst, which he made at the close of the parliamentary campaign of 1842-said of Lord Stanley, "No man is a better off-hand debater than the noble lord, but off-hand debaters are apt to say whatever comes in their heads on the spur of the moment, without stopping to consider whether it is strictly the fact." Had the noble ex-secretary been engaged in painting his own portrait instead of Lord Stanley's, he

could not more successfully have hit on a leading trait. It is chiefly on this very account that Lord Palmerston is so useful to his party as a debater. A more thoroughly sincere politician would be more cautious. He would have more reverence for truth, more respect for political character. Resting his faith on principles, he would be more chary of trifling with the facts on which they are founded. But Lord Palmerston is a debater, not a statesman. He is a first-rate gladiator in the great political arena, and usually a successful one; but, gladiator-like, he inquires little whether the cause he fights in be the cause of truth, being only anxious to shew his own skill and overcome his rival. The dexterity with which he fences at the case opposed to him, touching its vulnerable points with his sarcastic venom, or triumphing in the power with which he can make a feint of argument answer all the purposes of of a real home-thrust, is only equalled by his corresponding watchfulness and agility in parrying the thrusts of an opponent, guarding himself from his attack, or skipping about to avoid being hit. In these qualities, Sir James Graham approaches the nearest to him. But Lord Palmerston, besides all these practised arts, has also great plausibility, can work himself up admirably to a sham enthusiasm for liberal principles (just as Sir James used, in former days, to give a high colouring to his Conservatism), and can do it so well that it really requires considerable experience and observation to enable one to detect the difference between his clever imitation and the reality. He is almost unsurpassed in the art with which he can manage an argument with a show of fairness and reason, while only carrying it and his admirers far enough to serve the purpose of party in the debate. He seldom commits himself so far as to be laid open to even the most practised debaters. They may ridicule him upon his excessive official vanity and imperviousness to criticism on that score, but they can hardly discover a flaw in the particular case which it suits him for the time being to make out. On the other hand, he possesses himself considerable power of ridicule; and when he finds the