"If any one shall wilfully discharge or attempt to discharge, or point, aim, or present, at or near to the person of the Queen, any gun, pistol, or other description of firearms, or of other arms whatever--whether the same shall or shall not contain any explosive or destructive material; or discharge, or attempt to discharge, any explosive substance or material near to the Queen's person; or wilfully strike, or attempt to strike, or strike at the Queen's person with any offensive weapon, or in any other manner whatsoever; or wilfully throw or attempt to throw any substance, matter, or thing whatsoever at or upon the Queen's person, with intent to break the public peace, or whereby the public peace may be endangered, or to alarm her Majesty; or if any person shall, near to the Queen's person, wilfully produce or have any gun, pistol, or other description of firearms, or other arms whatsoever, or any explosive, destructive, or dangerous matter or thing whatsoever, with intent to use the same to injure the Queen's person or alarm her Majesty, the offender shall be guilty of a high misdemeanour, and liable at the discretion of the Court to be transported for seven years, or imprisoned with or without hard labour for any period not exceeding three years; and during such imprisonment to be publicly or privately whipped, as often and in such manner and form as the Court shall direct, not exceeding thrice." This salutary statute (proposed by the late Sir Robert Peel) was passed unanimously; Lord John Russell justly remarking, that "as the offence to be punished was that of bad and degraded beings, a base and degrading punishment was most fitly applied to it." Her Majesty enjoyed a seven years' respite from the insufferable annoyance to which she had been subjected--viz., till the 19th May 1849--when, about four o'clock in the afternoon, as she was driving in an open carriage with three of her children, a pistol was fired in the direction of the carriage by "one William Hamilton, an Irish bricklayer." The pistol was fired point-blank at the person of General Wemyss, one of her equerries, who happened to be in the line of her Majesty's person. This stolid wretch was tried on the 14th June ensuing, under the above statute, when he pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to be transported for seven years. Again, on the 12th of July last, it was rendered lamentably necessary to call this statute into operation, and with the like effect as in the preceding case: but we shall reserve our observations upon the case of Pate till after we have completed what we have to offer on those of Oxford and M'Naughten. We have just returned from an examination of those two notorious persons in Bethlehem Hospital, and shall by and by convey to the reader the result of our own careful observations, made since the earlier portions of this article were committed to the press. OXFORD'S CASE.