This is but a cowardly and contemptible line of conduct. If they have any spark of manhood in them, why can they not speak out? Surely by this time they should know the points of the Charter by heart, and be able to tell the constituencies to which of them they are ready to agree. On the contrary, we find nothing but dodging, shuffling, equivocating, and reserving. The fact is, that they have no mind of their own at all, and they are in sore perplexity as to the state of two other minds which they are trying to reconcile—the first being the mind of Lord John Russell, and the second being the mind of the constituency which they are addressing. For, apart from reform altogether, there are several topics about which your pure Whig candidate must be exceedingly cautious. For example, there is the withdrawal of the grant to Maynooth. Even supposing that Lord John Russell were as alert a Protestant as he professed himself to be in the autumn of 1850, how could he venture to sacrifice the support of the Irish tail? Therein lies the difficulty. You will find plenty of men—very determined Protestants, but also very determined adherents of the late Ministry—who will tell you “that they were always opposed to any grant of the kind;”—that is, that they thought it essentially wrong, not only in a political, but in a religious point of view; but, press one of these gentlemen upon the point, especially if, as in the case of Edinburgh, the selection of a candidate seems to depend greatly on his views with regard to that measure, and you will almost invariably find that his attachment to Protestantism is less strong than his regard for the interests of his party. This may not be right, and we do not think it is so; but we infinitely prefer the conduct and avowal of such men to the disgraceful exhibitions which have lately been made by more than one Whig candidate. Opinions, based on religious principle, never ought to be conceded. Changed they may be; but what idea of the sincerity of such a change can be formed, when we find it taking place immediately on the eve of an election, and, in one instance, after the issue of an address? After all, we are perhaps too severe. Every one knows what was the miserable denouement of Lord John Russell’s determined stand for Protestantism against Papal aggression; and it might be too much to expect that the devoted and even servile follower should exhibit, in his own person, more consistency than was displayed by his redoubted chief.