There is much of the eulogistic fervour of George Robins, combined with the
rich poetic feeling of Mechi, running throughout the oration. Indeed, it
remained for the Whigs to add this crowning triumph to their policy; for
who but Melbourne and Co. would have conceived the happy idea of converting
the mouth of the monarch into an organ for puffing, and transforming
Majesty itself into a _National Advertiser_?
THE QUEEN'S SPEECH.
MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,
I have the satisfaction to inform you, that, through the invaluable
policy of my present talented and highly disinterested advisers, I
continue to receive from foreign powers assurances of their
amicable disposition towards, and unbounded respect for, my elegant
and enlightened Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and of
their earnest desire to remain on terms of friendship with the rest
of my gifted, liberal, and amiable Cabinet.
The posture of affairs in China is certainly not of the most
pacific character, but I have the assurance of my infallible Privy
Council, and of that profound statesman my Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, in particular, that the present disagreement
arises entirely from the barbarous character of the Chinese, and
their determined opposition to the progress of temperance in this
happy country.
I have also the satisfaction to inform you, that, by the acute
diplomatic skill of my never-to-be-sufficiently-eulogised Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs, that, after innumerable and
complicated negotiations, he has at length succeeded in seducing
his Majesty the King of the French to render to England the tardy
justice of commemorating, by a _fete_ and inauguration at Boulogne,
the disinclination of the French, at a former period, to invade the
British dominions.
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