therefore, to negotiate even a temporary arrangement were fruitless, and Meerza Sauleh was again sent to General Paskevitch to endeavour to prevail upon his Excellency to grant an armistice, which should not bind Persia to accept ruinous terms. This mission also failed, and preparations were made to renew active operations. Shortly after the Russian army had retired beyond Nukhshivan, his Majesty the Shah, having left Allee Nuckee Meerza with the Hassah Khan at Choors, moved from Khoé to Marand, and his Royal Highness, Abbas Meerza, after the failure of his negotiations, marched to Erivan, where he was joined by Hoossein Khan, Sirdar, with a considerable body of men who had become disposable after the siege of Erivan was raised. In the meantime, General Paskevitch remained in the high lands at a place called Karababa, where his troops were said to be suffering much from an epidemic which prevailed in his camp-and the Russian troops in the other stations attempted nothing.

The Shah having remained a few days at Marand, moved about the middle of August to the Plain of Mher ban. Allee Nuckee Meerza and Has san Khan were still at Choors watch ing the movements of General Paske vitch and the Prince Royal; and Hoos sein Khan, having entrenched a position on the road from Bashaberan to Eutchkeleeseah, proceeded to invest the latter place.

Towards the end of August, a Russian division, consisting of 4000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, and 20 field pieces, marched from Aheran to relieve Eutchkeleeseah, which was now closely invested. In the evening they came in contact with the outposts of the Persian position, and finding that it was strongly entrenched, fell back for the night. Next morning they advanced, making a detour to avoid the entrenchment, and the Prince and Sirdar, drawing out their men, attack ed them on the line of march. Russians had formed themselves into four solid squares, connected by lines of infantry, in such a manner as to form one great hollow square, with small solid squares at the angles, which the Persians not unaptly compared to a square fort with a bastion or tower at each corner. The Persian commanders, instead of bringing up their whole

The

force at once, contented themselves with harassing their enemy by desultory attacks, and keeping up an uninterrupted fire of artillery. Two battalions of the Persian regular infantry, as they are called, supported by the guns and by a body of light horse, were first opposed to the Russians, and were warmly engaged for nearly an hour, when they were with drawn, and replaced by two fresh battalions. In this way, four or five brigades were successively brought into action, and the horsemen who hovered about made frequent attacks, wherever the line appeared to be weak. The action had commenced at sunrise, and continued without intermission till near sunset, when the Russian troops, exhausted by long-continued exertion, and the heat of the weather, and parched with thirst, arrived at a stream. The men, abandoning their ranks, rushed to the water, and the Persian commanders, seeing their advantage, brought up two fresh battalions, who charged without firing a shot. The Russians endeavoured to form and oppose them, but the formation was probably imperfect, and the opposition was certainly ineffectual. Their line was broken, and Persians and Russians mixed up together fought hand to hand. After a desperate struggle of some minutes' duration, the Russians gave way, and the confusion became general. The Persian horse, seeing the impression made by the infantry, charged resolutely. The wearied battalions, which had borne the brunt of the battle in the early part of the day, elated by the success of their comrades, dashed on to their support. The men were now so completely mingled together, that the fire of the artillery on both sides was suspended, and horse and foot, Persian and Russian, enveloped in an impenetrable cloud of dust, rolled on, one wild and roaring mass, towards the convent of the three churches, under the walls of which the Russians sought refuge.

In this action about twelve hundred Russians were left upon the field, and above three hundred were made prisoners. Between three and four thousand stands of arms, and several waggons of ammunition, cloth, and other stores, fell into the hands of the Persians, whose total loss did not exceed three hundred men. The conduct of the Russian troops was spirited, and

MY DEAR NORTH,

Ir was a matter of no small selfgratulation to me, that the few gentle remarks which I ventured, in my form er letter, to make upon the persons called Whigs, should so soon have been verified by the important events which have since taken place. The indignation of the country at the glaring incompetency of a Ministry, in which Whig principles predominated, became so apparent, that they were, as I supposed they would be, afraid to meet Parliament, and his Majesty felt himself under the necessity of putting into their places men capable of conducting the affairs of the country, which they manifestly were not. It was a great addition to the gratifi cation I felt on this occasion, that the Duke of Wellington was the person chosen by his Majesty to form the new administration, because I had endeavoured in my letter to do some justice to the character of the noble Duke, which it was the fashion at that time, amongst the Whigs, to visit with all the paltry and malignant vituperation with which they are accustomed to assail their superiors. Very far, indeed, did anything which I could say fall short of doing complete justice to a character, so splendid as that which I attempted to describe; but it had at least the effect of showing, however feebly, that of all men I thought him the most fit to be, that which he so soon afterwards wasPrime Minister of Great Britain. I intended to have sent you a letter very shortly after the Whigs were turned adrift, and had even written some pages, expressing, in terms not exactly of the mildest, my satisfaction at that event. In the moment of vietory I felt inclined to imitate the British lancers at Waterloo, who dashed over the unhorsed cuirassiers, and pinned them to the earth as they lay sprawling. I was disposed to show you some of the Whigs wriggling in the agonies of death and defeat upon the point of my spear, but I was dissuaded from my purpose by a good natured remonstrance. I was in midcareer, brandishing aloft my weapon, when my cousin Bob, who comes westward of Charing Cross, I think about four times in the year, did me

the honour of a visit. Bob is that kind of man, who is styled, in common parlance, "a d-d sensible fellow," that is, one who thinks twice before he speaks once-a practice, by the bye, of which I am prone to the inversion-who never gets into a scrape, and knows the turn of the market as well as any man on 'Change

that sort of man, in short, who gets quietly into reputation, becomes a Bank Director at fifty-six, and, having retired from business, dies at seventytwo, for want of something else to do, leaving a hundred and fifty thousand in the funds, besides some old houses in the City, a parcel of shares in insurance companies, and a villa at Hackney. As he is some twenty years my senior, and I have my "expectations," I have a very profound respect for his judgment, which I do not fail to show upon every suitable occasion; and as I know he is a stout Tory at bottom, though, in general, he thinks it prudent to steer clear of political opinions, I gave him my flourish over the fallen Whigs to read, while I slashed on to finish the page I was inditing. Bob read on, as steadily as if it were a bill of lading, or a price current he was perusing; and at the conclusion I observed him lay one leg across the other, and rub his hand across the lower part of his face, which with him are always preparatory mo◄ tions to the saying of something sage. I therefore turned, erectis auribus, towards him, to catch the wisdom which he might let fall. "I don't," said he, "that is-in my view of the case -I don't see the use of throwing wa ter upon a drowned rat."

Critics, who are fastidious about elegance of illustration, might perhaps find something to cavil at in this laconic criticism of my cousin; but to me, who am careless about such things, it spoke volumes. Had Brougham made a seven-hours' speech on the subject, it is not likely that he would have said anything half so much to the purpose, as was contained in those few words. For what, indeed, is more like a Whig than a rat-a vicious detestable animal, hateful to the sight of all honest people, whose goods it is perpetually labouring to destroy? or what more like the present condition

of the Whigs than a drowned rat; when its career of mischief is closed, when, in its eagerness to steal some of the prime cheese which lay on the upper shelf, it climbed where it was unable to keep its proper balance, and tumbled down into the tub of water that lay beneath, and was then taken by the tail, and flung out on the dunghill to decay, amongst other out cast filth? The parallel is obvious, and needs not to be prosecuted farther. I shall not trouble you with the courteous speech, in which I admitted the extreme force of my cousin's observation; suffice it to say, that when he was gone, I threw my pages in the fire, muttering, as they consumed before my eyes, "the man spoke like an oracle-it would indeed be superfluous to throw water upon a drowned rat, and I shall not write to my excellent friend North, until I have something else to comment upon than the wretched plight of the Whigs."

It was some time after this before anything occurred which offered any temptation for commentary, politics having been most uninvitingly dull for some time after the formation of the new Ministry, and even after the meeting of Parliament; but for the last three weeks there has been a little more animation, and it may not be an unprofitable task to take a rapid glance at some of the most striking views in the moving panorama of public events during that time. First in order, then, come the "explanations," so called, no doubt, according to the old rule, because nothing was therein explained. It is always an unpleasant thing, when persons, holding stations so high as those of Cabinet Ministers of Great Britain, should find it necessary to enter into a defence, or "explanation," as it has been termed, of their conduct as individuals. We feel, in spite of ourselves, the truth of the French proverb, "qui s'excuse s'accuse," and we are forced to dwell upon the exculpation of those, whom we would rather consider not only as above misconduct, but above suspicion. However strong this disagree able feeling may be under the most favourable circumstances, it is unquestionably much heightened, when we find these defences to consist of long and intricate harangues, of which it is tedious to arrive at the end, and diffi

cult to arrive at the meaning. We fear that something is wrong, where so many words are necessary to ex❤ plain that all was right. I do not think any one ever dreamt of calling upon such a man as the Duke of Wellington for an "explanation," in the sense in which it has been lately applied; and if such were by possibility asked for, does any one doubt, that in so many words as might be delivered in ten minutes by the House of Lords' clock, he would sweep away all mat ter of doubt and intricacy from the subject, by a bold straight-forward statement, which would leave neither necessity nor room for further ques tioning?

Such, certainly, was not the kind of explanation with which the members of the late Cabinet favoured Parliament and the public; nor can it ever come from those, who are either Whigs themselves, or have had the misfortune to be connected with Whigs, who involve everything in such a hodge-podge of petty manage ment, intrigue, and insincerity, that even an honest man cannot make a plain story out of that with which they have had to do.

Ás to the first speech of "explana❤ tion" which was delivered by Mr Huskisson at Liverpool, I have a shrewd suspicion, my worthy friend Christopher, that, notwithstanding the rather hard knocks which you have, with something of Irish kindness, occasionally given to the Colonial Secretary, he had been previously to the delivery of it taking a lesson from you in the art of joke and banter, in which you are, above all men at present on the face of the earth, pre-eminently conspicuous. It is manifest that the speech was nothing but a most superb quiz from beginning to end. And the wonder is that even the Liverpool people should have intellects so cottony as not to have perceived it; for even if they had believed that the tears of the "Continental peasantry" for Mr Canning's death, was but a flourish of genuine rhetorical pathos, and that the honesty and consistency of the Whigs in joining those who professed Lord Liverpool's principles, was, however "strange, yet true," in the right honourable Secretary's opinion; how the deuce could they be so stupid as not to see the joke, when he began to talk about the "cordiality and har

mony" of the late Cabinet? Why, my dear North, if they had had the least sense of the ridiculous, the universal crowd would have laughed until the sound would have swept across the sea, and was reverberated in a thousand echoes from the rugged shore of the Hill of Houth-Unanimity and cordiality, indeed!—But the thing is too ridiculous to write or speak about; one can only laugh.

There is nothing more like serious truth than irony, when one does not happen to have the key to it; and, as the reporters could only give Mr Huskisson's words, without imparting the joking manner, which, doubtless, would have set the matter right with all but the Liverpool people, a great deal of misapprehension went abroad, and a good many, with more simplicity than you, actually supposed that he meant something when he spoke about a guarantee. The Duke, how ever, soon cleared their notions on this head, by opening a point-blank battery of a heavy shot, called negatives, upon this same guarantee, which in the space of three minutes demolished it utterly and for ever.

That really pleasant and clever old gentleman, Mr Tierney, the same who, when lately in the Cabinet, and having no business of his own to mind, went about fidgeting and gossiping in his usual good-natured manner, and setting his colleagues by the ears-he promised to call Mr Huskisson to account, nominally, for his bad behaviour in serving under the Duke, but really, for turning up his nose at the Whigs in Liverpool. When he came to the scratch, however, the gallant old George fought shy, to the very great astonishment of everybody; for no one suspects the veteran's courage, and to this day he is a cleaner and a cleverer hitter than any one of his party. Whatever may have been the cause, the House unexpectedly broke up on the appointed evening, without the challenge having been given; and it was reserved for Lord Normanby, a cleverish, but rather coarse sort of person for a lord, to call for and obtain these much-expected explanations.

All the world that reads the newspapers knows what followed; they received a most edifying history of the "unanimity and cordiality" of the late Cabinet, and, I trust, have been duly thankful to Providence, which

has rescued the country from such silly and dangerous guidance.

It is really wonderful that greater misfortunes than did take place should not have happened, when public affairs were in the hands of such a cabinet-When the Master of the Mint goes to the Colonial Secretary to chat with him about the Finance Committee, and the clever hit it would be to gain Lord Althorp's influence in the House of Commons, by making him its chairman-when the same Master of the Mint makes another call upon the Premier, who, good easy man, has no objections, and then forthwith he

still the Master of the Mint, who ought to have been at the Tower coining sixpences-negotiates with, and appoints Lord Althorp chairman, and tells what he has done about the streets in his own good-humoured chatty manner-while all the time the Chancellor of the Exchequer in particular, or the Cabinet in general, knows no thing at all about the matter. When such a thing as this could be done, what is there so absurd or so childish that we might not expect to follow? In this case, the conduct of Mr Herries was such as one might have expected from his knowledge of business, and his feelings as a Tory and a gentleman; it would have been worse than folly in him to have retained his place in a Cabinet where such proceedings were tolerated; and he therefore determined not to remain. Members of both Houses, who were members also of the late Cabinet, have asserted that his resignation, or what amounts to the same thing, a difference which the acceptance of this resigna◄ tion would have put an end to, was the cause of the dissolution of the late Cabinet-Mr Huskisson implicit ly, and Mr Herries expressly and emphatically, says it was not; and the public, or that part of the public which troubles itself about such matters, is left to the painful alternative of choosing between the statements of men who state things apparently contradictory, and yet whom one is bound to believe are incapable of stating anything untruly. Mr Herries, very plainly and simply, and, as it appears to me, very naturally, says, that the contradictory of his statement is incredible. He has asked, what reason can there be that the resignation of a person so unimportant as himself should cause the com