_December 2nd._--The death of Charles Buller has occurred when he can be ill spared to the party of which he was rapidly becoming an important member, and to the country which he was capable of serving. He is a great social and a great public loss, more especially in days of mediocrity and barrenness like the present. He was clever, amiable, accomplished, and honest. His abilities were of a very high order, and though he loved the world and its pursuits, he had great powers of application. Few people were more agreeable and entertaining in society, and he had a very gentle and affectionate disposition. He never made, and never would have made, much progress in the profession of the law, which he originally embraced. It was evidently unsuited to his genius, his taste, and his habits, and he judged rightly in exchanging it once for all for a political career in which, had his life been spared, he would have achieved great eminence. In politics he was originally a Radical, but though the old leaven not unfrequently showed itself, it was greatly modified in his latter years; and when he manifested ultra-Liberal sympathies, it was probably more from love of paradox and controversy, than from real and sincere conviction. His political opinions, however, which for a long time seem to have been in an unsettled and transitional state, he never suppressed or compromised for any personal interest; and though he was both very ambitious and very poor, he never committed a mean or discreditable act for the sake of either favour or office. A man more honourable and independent never existed, and he would have been indebted for the political exaltation which was certainly in store for him to nothing but the force and influence of his own capacity and power. His career of usefulness was in fact only beginning. Up to a very recent period he had made no progress in public life commensurate with his ability, and especially with his parliamentary talents; but if justice was not done him, it was mainly because he did not do justice to himself. He was perhaps the most popular member of the House of Commons. By universal acknowledgement he was an admirable speaker, full of matter, lucid, never dull, and generally very amusing, so that he never rose without being sure of an attentive and favourable audience. His greatest speeches were on dry and serious subjects, such as colonisation, emigration, or records, none of which became heavy or uninteresting in his hands. He had, however, one great defect, which not only rendered him less agreeable in society than he would otherwise have been, but which had a very serious and unhappy influence on his political career. He was seduced by his keen perception of the ridiculous and an irresistible propensity to banter into an everlasting mockery of everything and everybody, which not only often became tiresome and provoking, but gave an appearance of levity to his