Then came the plan for the future. Instead of FIFTY thousand pounds, which had been collected and spent, Mr. Cobden, in the name of the League, demanded ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS-a sum which, in the early stages of the agitation, would have been supposed to surpass all human credibility. The League, in fact, became bolder, as the impelling motives for the agitation seemed to abate. An intention was avowed of contesting every election for a Member of Parliament; and a solemn declaration was made, that the Anti-Corn-Law League abjured Protection for Manufactures, and demanded its unqualified removal from Corn. Then, taking advantage of a fall of twenty shillings on the average price of corn, as compared with previous years, Mr. Cobden, accompanied by Mr. Bright, recently 'returned for Durham, set off to talk to all the farmers of the United Kingdom. "We are distressed," said the farmers. "Yes," said Mr. Cobden, "you are. Some time ago, we were very badly off, and you were tolerably well off. Now, we are getting better, and you are getting worse. It is two buckets in a well; as the one goes up, the other goes down." The "mind" of the agricultural constituency was disturbed and shaken by appeals like these. Nor was it the least striking portion of this extraordinary exhibition, that two manufacturers should be seen traversing the kingdom, expounding to the agriculturists the doctrines of political economy, and labouring, with a zeal and assiduity which may have been equalled, but has never been surpassed, to raise the intellect of the constituency of the empire to a level with the opinions which they themselves entertained. 66 A bolder step was in contemplation. Mr. Cobden, during his two sessional residences in London, consequent on his election for Stockport, had been drawn out of that provincialism in which his active mind had been embedded. His mental vision took a wider range. London, he felt, must be the head-quarters of a NATIONAL agitation. He saw that Manchester, with all its energy, its enthusiasm, and its determination, was only Manchester, in the estimation of Great Britain and the world. He proposed a removal to the Council of the Anti-Corn-Law League. The idea staggered its members. "What!" they exclaimed, "leave warm Manchester for cold London! quit concentrated energy for diluted effort; remove from a town which has nursed your association from the feebleness of infancy to the athletic strength of manhood!" The appeal was a powerful one. Mr. Cobden felt it; but he persevered in his demand. Railroads," replied he, "will make London and Manchester one: but let us remove our head-quarters to the commercial capital of the world." The demand was acceded to: but just before, an event occurred indicative of the extraordinary development of free-trade doctrines in the public mind. A gentleman, having a most remarkable talent for applying statistics to the commercial questions of the hour, Mr. James Wilson, started a weekly newspaper, which he still conducts, under the title of the Economist. This paper has become an authority on commercial and financial subjects; and has been repeatedly quoted in Parliament. Immediately after the Economist was started, the Anti-Corn-Law League removed its head-quarters to London; and carried on its operations on a more extended scale than ever. Large premises were taken; men of great ability were employed; advocates of free trade from the provinces found, in the public and in the private rooms of the Anti-Corn-Law League, a point of concentration, and a place where social hospitality might be enjoyed. And THE LEAGUE weekly newspaper was started-a huge advance on the Anti-Bread-Tax Circular. Then the metropolitan theatres were hired-first Drury-Lane, afterwards Covent-Garden-in which three thousand men and women weekly listened to popular speeches on economic doctrines, and showered on every orator the unfailing thunders of their applause. The Anti-Corn-Law League also meddled with elections. They fought, and they won, a contested election for the city of London against formidable odds; and though they lost ground at other elections, it was clear that the doctrines of free trade were taking possession of the commercial mind of the kingdom. Mr. Cobden suggested the idea of inducing supporters of free trade to buy up forty shilling freeholds, so as to counteract the power of the landed aristocracy in the counties with their influence over the fifty-pound tenants-at-will—an idea which has been extensively adopted in the manufacturing counties. And while Sir Robert Peel was giving impetus to free-trade doctrines, by successive legislative removals of restrictions on trade and commerce, the Anti-Corn-Law League was anything but idle. A great industrial exhibition was held at Covent-Garden Theatre during the summer of 1844, serving a double purpose of manifesting the extraordinary ingenuity and variety of our arts and manufactures, and of adding to the funds of the association. We are drawing too near to recent events to remain any longer historical. The railroad mania-the cold, wet autumn-the potato-rot-the apprehended famine in Ireland-the resignation of Sir Robert Peel on the question of Free Trade-the failure of Lord John Russell to form an administration—the resumption of the government by Sir Robert Peel, and his free-trade measures—these are all questions of the hour, with which we cannot properly intermeddle. Four acts of the social drama have now passed; when the fifth has been concluded, we may resume the thread of the present discourse in the spirit of an impartial "Eye-Witness." A RIDDLE BY MR. CANNING. A FRIEND writes, "I see you give specimens of Mr. Praed's Riddles. Now I think your readers may be amused by seeing Mr. Canning in the character of a riddlemaker. His best-perhaps the best riddle extant-is the well-known one, 'A noun there is,' &c." Alas for fame! We have had some difficulty in getting a copy of this "well-known one;" but here it is, as expounded to us by a lady, who might have inspired the rhymes of the gallant statesman and wit, had they lived in the same generation : "A noun there is of plural number, THE CARICATURIST'S PORTRAIT GALLERY. PORTRAIT IV.-EDMUND BURKE. EDMUND BURKE the subject of a caricature!—he whom Mackintosh most justly described as "the greatest philosopher in practice that the world ever saw ;"-he, the politician, who, dealing with the temporary passions and prejudices of his own day, raised such questions by the force of his astonishing genius into land-marks for all time-he to be caricatured! And yet we cannot lament that this wonderful thinker should not have been exempted from the attacks of the "light artillery " which rattles its shots about the ears of every public man, be he great or be he petty. GILLRAY was the caricaturist of Burke, as he was of Pitt and Fox, and a host of all the leading spirits of the days of the French Revolution. He was an extraordinary portrait-painter, and so characteristic a likeness of Burke was never produced as in the sketch now before us. Every body in the least familiar with modern history has heard of Burke's famous dagger-scene in the House of Commons. Gillray's caricature tells us this story; and it tells it better than any words, for it shows us the identical actor. There is a general notion that this oratorical exhibition was one of Burke's extravagant flights. But Burke was not, except on rare occasions, an extravagant orator. Rarely was he a passionate one. He was a great teacher, whom a listless and impatient House of Commons too often thought a bore. He "Still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining." Even this very dagger-scene was in some respects a matter-of-fact affair-elevated into an approach to sublimity by the imagination of the orator, and, like many other sublime actions, treading close upon the ridiculous. It certainly, upon the face of the thing, does appear a proper subject for caricature, when the man upon whom the eyes of all Europe were fixed,-who at that moment exercised more influence over public opinion than any speaker or writer who ever existed,- -a grave man wellstricken in years,—should draw out a dagger from his pocket, and cast it upon the floor of the House of Commons. Mr. Prior, the biographer of Burke, thus relates the occurrence, which took place on the 28th of December, 1792, on the second reading of the Alien Bill: "Mr. Burke, in mentioning that an order for making three thousand daggers had arrived some time before at Birmingham, a few of which had been actually delivered, drew one from under his coat, and threw it indignantly on the floor." The author of the 'Pictorial History of England' calls this "a stroke of oratorical acting;" but it appears, from a circumstantial account published by the present Earl of Eldon, in a note to Mr. Twiss's Life of the Lord Chancellor Eldon, that Mr. Burke's possession of the dagger was an accidental occurrence, and that the "acting" was at any rate unpremeditated. The dagger itself is in the possession of Sir Charles Montolieu Lamb, the son of Sir James Bland Burgess, who was Under Secretary of State at that period. It is "a foot long in the blade, and about five inches in the handle, of coarse workmanship, and might serve either as a dagger or a pike-head." Sir Charles Lamb's account is as follows: "The history of it is, that it was sent to a manufacturer at Birmingham, as a pattern, with an order to make a large quantity like it. At that time the order seemed so suspicious, that instead of executing it, he came to London and called on my father at the Secretary of State's office, to inform him of it, and ask his advice; and he left the pattern with him. Just after, Mr. Burke called, on his way to the House of Commons; and upon my father mentioning the thing to him, borrowed the dagger, to show in the House. They walked down to the House together; and when Mr. Burke had made his speech, my father took the dagger again, and kept it as a curiosity." This, no doubt, was the veritable dagger. Lord Eldon, then Sir John Scott, had a similar dagger; and on the 11th of January, 1793, he writes to his brother, "You would hear of the dagger which Burke exhibited in the House of Commons. I have got the pattern specimen of that order, which I shall keep as a great curiosity." THE FLORAL TASTES OF LONDON AND OTHER LARGE CITIES. HAVING occasion, after several years' absence from the metropolis, to walk through its closely populated suburbs, my attention was attracted by the almost universal manifestation of a taste for floriculture in the windows and small plots of ground in front of the houses. The labyrinthine streets displayed the outward marks of great varieties of pecuniary endowments, and were inhabited by people of almost all the grades of middle and low life; but, with few exceptions, indications of this taste pervaded them all, and a wreath culled from the bountiful lap of nature told the passer by that Flora and her kingdom were not forgotten. I was prepared for something like this development of a love of gardening, from having spent my early days in London, and thus being personally acquainted with the earnest yearnings of its citi⚫zens for green fields and flowers; but I am convinced, from a little attention to the subject, that the taste has more than kept pace with the increase of the population, and must be considered a stronger characteristic of the people than it was then. As I passed from the Great Western Railway one bright summer's morning, before the natural blue of the heavens was travestied by London smoke, what a gorgeous sight presented itself in the decorated balconies of the noble and wealthy inhabitants of that aristocratic quarter! The owners were probably yet slumbering, but what beauties were silently pouring their fragrance on the morning air! Pots of the choicest greenhouse plants, wet with the dews of night, gave sure intimation of the floral tastes of those who dwelt within. Roses and pelargoniums (geraniums in our old vernacular) were especially abundant, as they will always be in such collections, from the facility with which they are grown. Myrtles and other evergreen shrubs · mingled their dark green with the foliage of gayer tints, and mignionette and heliotrope poured forth their delicious perfumes. These balconies, opening probably from drawing-rooms, were evidently little consecrated spots, where taste and refinement kept watch from day to day, and where the purest pleasures might be enjoyed. Some, indeed, of these accessories of fashion might be the appurtenances of mere wealth, evincing the love of display of their owners; but I cannot believe this was the case with many of them. The flowers looked like loved things, and uttered silent tales in the ear of a contemplative observer. I could imagine that youth and beauty had tended them; that the sight of them had relaxed the brow of care, so often a tenant of the palace as well as of the poor man's cottage; and that sickness |