where would be our resource? The statement, which the undersigned, whose hearts are torn with anguish, venture to place before your Majesty, is not the product of a terrified imagination, but of observations which each has made within the circle of his attributions, during several months. The effect of these circumstances in the ensuing parliamentary session may easily be foreseen. Each of the undersigned is ready to sacrifice for your Majesty his fortune and his life. Your ministers believe that they have given you proofs of their fidelity and attachment, but it is for them a doubly sacred duty to point out to your Majesty the ever-increasing danger of this situation. We beg you to listen to our humble prayer and not to suppose that it is dictated by any desire to thwart your royal will. It is directed only against a state of things which threatens to destroy the fair fame, power, and future happiness of a beloved King. Your ministers are convinced, after earnest deliberation, that if your Majesty should not deign to give ear to their supplications, they are bound to resign the positions to which the kindness and confidence of their sovereign has called them, and to pray your Majesty to remove the portfolios with which they are entrusted, (Signed) VON ABEL. VON SEINSHEIM. VON GUMPPENBERG. VON SCHRENK. MUNICH, _11th February 1847_." This extraordinary address exhibits the courage, if not the tact and sense of humour of the signatories; but none of them cared to present it. Abel sent it by messenger to the King, who perused it with mingled amusement and indignation, and then locked it in his desk. He asked Abel if this was the only copy existing, and was answered in the affirmative. But a day or two later the memorandum appeared in print in the columns of the _Augsburger Zeitung_. A preliminary draft had been sent by Abel to a fifth minister, Herr Von Giese, who had left it carelessly upon his bureau. Here it was scanned with interest and curiosity by his elderly sister, and was carried off by her, to be proudly exhibited at a tea-party. Handed round among the guests for examination, it was not long in finding its way into the Press. It was reproduced in the French and English papers. The _Times_ devoted an editorial to its contents, and compared the excessive sensibility of the Bishop of Augsburg with the hardened indifference of the English hierarchy to the transgressions of the fourth George and William. The lachrymose prelate contributed hugely to the gaiety of nations. Bernstorff, the Prussian Ambassador, considered the address wanting in respect to the sovereign; by another statesman it was qualified as unbecoming, injudicious, and crude. More heads than one, it was remarked, had been lost over Lola. No one could have been more amused than the lady herself by this astonishing memorandum.