The Session of Parliament has ended, leaving Peel quite as powerful, or more so, than he was at the beginning of it. Everybody says affairs are in a strange state, but nobody foresees, and few seem to desire any change. The world seems weary of what are called politics, there is not a spark of party spirit visible. The Whigs see no prospect of coming into office, or making a Government that would be able to stand, and people will not make exertions and spend money without a reasonable expectation of some tangible result. On the other hand, everything like enthusiasm for Peel is extinguished; the Tories hate, fear, but do not dare oppose him. If the Whigs cannot see any alternative, the Tories can see still less: and odious as Peel's conduct is to them, and alarming as his principles are, they still think they are better off, and on the whole in less danger with him than with any other Ministry that could be formed. He has completely succeeded in getting the Court on his side, so that between the support he gets from one side on account of his liberality, and that which he continues to receive from the other on account of a combination of motives, habit, fear, hope and patronage, he is in fact, though very unpopular, still very powerful. Everybody expects that he means to go on, and in the end to knock the Corn Laws on the head,[103] and endow the Roman Catholic Church; but nobody knows how or when he will do these things. He in the meantime proceeds with extreme caution and reserve, and to some his conduct appears the height of prudence, and the exercise of a sound discretion; while others regard it as pusillanimous and impolitic, and that in holding back so long as he does, he is committing the old error of delaying till the moment passes away when concession can be beneficial and effectual. It is clear that his object is to do everything gradually, if possible to reconcile his own reluctant friends to his changes, and draw them along with him, partly by reason and partly by influence, so that he may still find himself at the end of each successive stage with his party unbroken, and his power unshaken. He probably believes sincerely that great good will ensue from his measures, and that if he can avoid a quarrel and a break-up, the manifestation, clear and indubitable, of the good effects he has produced will reconcile those whom no reasoning can reconcile or propitiate beforehand. He therefore endeavours to combine his two objects, and it is certainly by a profound calculation, be it wise or not, that he is acting and temporising as he does. Nobody perhaps represents so correctly the state of public opinion, which is itself unsettled, and in a state of transition. [Sidenote: INDIFFERENCE TO POLITICS.]