Methinks there glows in Britain yet A feeling, that would grieve to let Thee, sun! upon her empire set, While shouts of rival nations rose:— Our fathers were her sons, and we Are but her offspring o’er the sea; Aye undivided let us be— We scorn to link us with her foes! Methinks her subjects, side by side, Will long her burdens just divide,— Will long maintain, in matchless pride, Her flag, which aye hath honoured been:— And many a great deed yet be done, And many a glorious field be won, Ere of her empire set the sun. “God save Britannia’s noble Queen.” AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES: OPENING OF THE SESSION. It rarely happens that the proceedings which occur in parliament, immediately after its reassembling, are so intrinsically important as to sustain the interest invariably excited in the public mind by the approach of the legislative season. Such at least is the case whenever men can predict, almost with certainty, what topics will be alluded to and what avoided in the royal address; what policy Ministers are determined to pursue; and what amount of support they may confidently count on receiving from political friends and auxiliaries. From the opening of the session of 1850 little novelty was to be augured. The Free-traders, having had everything their own way, could not be expected to express any misgiving as to the working of a system which they had so deliberately adopted. The cry of distress from without, loud and general as it was, had not shaken the equanimity of the secret divan of Downing Street; nor perhaps was the complaint deemed as yet articulate enough to require more than a casual notice. The storm might be brewing, but it was not at its height, and there would be time enough to meet it hereafter. What her Majesty’s Ministers had to do was to make out a fair case of prosperity for the present, and to hold out a still brighter prospect for the future. They had plausible materials for doing so. Bullion was plentiful in the vaults of the Bank of England; the exports for the past year had increased largely in amount; the revenue was in no bad condition. Abroad, there was a lull in those hostilities which for the last two years have frightened Europe from its propriety; and, though the victory had not declared itself on the side of those whom the Whigs favoured with their approbation, still tranquillity was something. It gave an augmented market to our manufacturers, and removed those hindrances which threatened to become serious interruptions to commerce. With such materials at command, no one but a most sorry artificer could have failed in constructing a plausible prosperity address. The state of the home market was evidently a subject for future discussion.