pocket, and he must go on until his career terminates at the gallows. There can be no relapse to honesty. Such an idea, to borrow Mr Cobden's own elegant phraseology, "is all sham and fudge!" Once let a woman lapse from virtue, and repentance becomes impossible; she must pursue her destiny till she dies in a garret or the hospital. These may be Mr Cobden's opinions, but they are not ours, and neither do we believe that they have received the sanction of the country. He seems at the present moment, to judge from the tone of his harangues, in the same state of excitement as the sailor, who, when the vessel is in danger, insists upon breaking open the spirit-room. He is determined to have free-trade for ever, let the experiment cost what it may. One thing, however, is remarkable, and that is, that even Mr Cobden seems to have lost faith in the efficacy of his former nostrums. Neither at Manchester nor in the House of Commons does he attempt to explain the unaccountable absence of the vast benefits which he proposed to confer upon the nation. Probably he is wise in abstaining from any explanation which may draw attention to this subject. His attempt to get up a false alarm on the score of increased establishments, is not without adroitness, especially at the present time: but after all, it is a mere prolongation of his existence; he cannot hope to escape the penalty which is common to all false prophets--that of standing before his dupes in the character of a detected impostor. However this matter may end, we have all a duty to perform. Those who think with us will do it fearlessly and frankly: without faction, but also without the compromise of a single principle. They will support the independence and the credit of the country from motives which Mr Cobden cannot understand, and which the leaders of the Whig party have not the courage or the manliness to avow. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Archaic spelling and variations in spelling and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 389, March 1848, by Various