The 19th.--The Parliament adjourned; an era for ever remarkable in English annals! Opposition, which had lasted from the days of Queen Elizabeth, and even the distinctions of parties having in a manner ceased at this period! Popery, which had harassed the reign of that heroine; the spirit of liberty which had struggled against four Stuarts; the spirit of slavery which had wrestled to restore their descendants; all the factions which had distracted King William, possessed Queen Anne, and ridiculed the House of Hanover; and the Babel of parties that had united to demolish Walpole, and separated again to pursue their private interests; all were now sunk into a dull mercenary subjection to two brothers, whose administration resembled that of King James for timidity, of King William for change of Ministers, and of Queen Anne for an ignominious peace! Buckingham had been attacked in the arms of King James; Laud and Strafford beheaded; Hyde banished, though allied to the Crown; the virtuous Somers impeached; the victorious Marlborough disgraced; the favourite Walpole removed. Pelham alone could teach servility to a Parliament, whose privileges were yet untouched! In Sweden there seems the same indifference for liberty. Count Tessin, the pattern of the British Minister, always affecting to resign, always entreated by his creatures to retain his power, is known to be meditating the restoration of absolute power. In France, where the Crown is despotic, and the people bigoted to whatever phantom is their King, there is a set of men, whose remonstrances, steadiness, and patriotism would figure with any senate, that Greece, Rome, or former Britain knew. But it is time to conclude the history of this extraordinary year, all the chief events of which having terminated in confirming the power of Mr. Pelham, it will be proper, before I take leave of the reader, to add this person’s portrait to those of the under-actors; and the better to illustrate it, I shall take the liberty of examining his and his master Sir Robert Walpole’s characters together, though it is difficult to compare two Ministers, when on one side genius must be entirely left out of the question: nor could anything draw on a parallel between a man of genius and a man of none, but the singular case of the latter having affected what the former could not--I mean power without unpopularity.