On that day week, and at that hour, he was pacing the pleasant grounds of Badminton, little dreaming that the electric wire, within a few hours, would be charged with two or three potent syllables addressed to himself, announcing the sudden fall of a Ministry, and summoning him to town, to form a new one! On Saturday evening he received a command to attend her Majesty on the ensuing day, when he presented to her Majesty "an outline of his Administration,"--and, within three days' time, a list of all "those friends whom he had selected to discharge the principal offices of the Government." On the very day on which he was speaking, he and they had kissed hands on receiving the seals of office; and it is easy to imagine how every moment of the last five days must have been occupied with the harassing anxieties of forming an Administration. Yet there he stood, prepared to state, before that brilliant and imposing audience--before the whole country, and representatives of every civilised nation on earth, the policy on which he proposed to govern this vast empire!--An exposition which he well knew would require profound consideration to frame, so as to hit the happy mean between candour and statesmanlike reserve; to satisfy just expectation, and at the same time avoid alarming friends, or provoking captious enemies. Such a speech as the Earl of Derby delivered during the ensuing hour; so prudent in what was said, and omitted; so complete and comprehensive in its scheme and scope; so exact and felicitous in detail and expression--could not have been prepared, and delivered, as it was, by any man but one of great and practised powers, and consummate discretion. With no disposition whatever to flatter the Earl of Derby, and uninfluenced by any consideration except a rigorous regard for truth and justice, we declare our deliberate conviction that this speech alone showed its speaker fit to conduct the affairs of this country, at the grave crisis which undoubtedly exists. It is pervaded by an air of modesty, simplicity, frankness, resolution, discretion, and dignity, that is very lovely to the eyes of Englishmen. It is the speech of a Christian gentleman and statesman, and delineates a policy based upon Principle, as contradistinguished to Expediency. It exhibited a noble spirit, at once conciliatory, and uncompromising; and, in a word, immediately produced a prodigious effect upon the country. Had it been less able and satisfactory than it was, the consequences, as the speaker well knew, would have been immediately serious and prejudicial, to an extent beyond present calculation. As it is, the country, though in a very anxious and exacting humour, appeared to become at once assured and calm; and its pulse--the Funds--has ever since beat, not with feverish fluctuation, but with tranquil regularity. There is no gainsaying that fact, and it is a very pregnant one.