cals voting against them. Sir Robert Peel
was commanded to form a Government, but
failed, in consequence of the difficulties that
arose (our readers will remember them) about
the Ladies of the Bedchamber. The Ladies of
the Bedchamber brought the Whigs in again,
and then the Radicals (being always for the
destruction of everything) made it one of the
conditions of their rendering their support to
the new Whig Government that the
penny-postage system should be adopted. This was
two years after the appointment of the
Committee: that is to say, in eighteen hundred
and thirty-nine. The Circumlocution Office
had, to that time, done nothing towards the
penny postage, but oppose, delay, contradict,
and show itself uniformly wrong.

"They adopted his scheme, and gave him
the leading share in carrying it out." Of
course they gave him the leading share in
carrying it out, then, at the time when they
adopted it, and took the credit and popularity
of it? Not so. In eighteen hundred and
thirty-nine, Mr. Rowland Hill was appointed
—not to the Post Office, but to the Treasury.
Was he appointed to the Treasury to carry out
his own scheme? No. He was appointed
"to advise." In other words, to instruct the
ignorant Circumlocution Office how to do
without him, if it by any means could. On
the tenth of January, eighteen hundred and
forty, the penny-postage system was adopted.
Then, of course, the Circumlocution Office
gave Mr. Rowland Hill "the leading share
in carrying it out "? Not exactly, but it
gave him the leading share in carrying
himself out: for, in eighteen hundred and
forty-two, it summarily dismissed Mr.
Rowland Hill altogether!

When the Circumlocution Office had come
to that pass in its patriotic course, so much
admired by the Edinburgh Review, of
protecting and patronizing Mr. Rowland Hill,
whom any child who is not a Novelist can
perceive to have been its peculiar protégé;
the public mind (always perverse) became
much excited on the subject. Sir Thomas
Wilde moved for another Committee.
Circumlocution Office interposed. Nothing was
done. The public subscribed and presented
to Mr. Rowland Hill, Sixteen Thousand
Pounds. Circumlocution Office remained
true to itself and its functions. Did nothing;
would do nothing. It was not until eighteen
hundred and forty-six, four years afterwards,
that Mr. Rowland Hill was appointed to a
place in the Post Office. Was he appointed,
even then, to the "leading share in carrying
out" his scheme? He was permitted to
creep into the Post Office up the back stairs,
through having a place created for him.
This post of dignity and honor, this
Circumlocution Office crown, was called "Secretary
to the Post-Master General;" there being
already a Secretary to the Post Office, of
whom the Circumlocution Office had declared,
as its reason for dismissing Mr. Rowland
Hill, that his functions and Mr. Rowland
Hill's could not be made to harmonize.

They did not harmonize. They were in
perpetual discord. Penny postage is but one
reform of a number of Post Office reforms
effected by Mr. Rowland Hill; and these,
for eight years longer, were thwarted and
opposed by the Circumlocution Office, tooth
and nail. It was not until eighteen hundred
and fifty-four, fourteen years after the
appointment of Mr. Wallace's Committee, that
Mr. Rowland Hill (having, as was openly
stated at the time, threatened to resign and
to give his reasons for doing so), was at last
made sole Secretary at the Post Office, and
the inharmonious secretary (of whom no
more shall be said) was otherwise disposed
of. It is only since that date of eighteen
hundred and fifty-four, that such reforms as
the amalgamation of the general and district
posts, the division of London into ten towns,
the earlier delivery of letters all over the
country, the book and parcels post, the
increase of letter-receiving houses
everywhere, and the management of the Post
Office with a greatly increased efficiency, have
been brought about by Mr. Rowland Hill
for the public benefit and the public
convenience.

If the Edinburgh Review could seriously
want to know "how Mr. Dickens accounts for
the career of Mr. Rowland Hill," Mr. Dickens
would account for it by his being a Birmingham
man of such imperturbable steadiness
and strength of purpose, that the Circumlocution
Office, by its utmost endeavours, very
freely tried, could not weaken his determination,
sharpen his razor, or break his heart.
By his being a man in whose behalf the
public gallantry was roused, and the public
spirit awakened. By his having a project,
in its nature so plainly and directly tending
to the immediate benefit of every man,
woman, and child in the State, that the
Circumlocution Office could not blind them,
though it could for a time cripple it. By his
having thus, from the first to the last, made
his way in spite of the Circumlocution Office,
and dead against it as his natural enemy.

But, the name is evidently a curious
misprint and an unfortunate mistake. The
Novelist will await the Reviewer's correction
of the press, and substitution of the right
name.

Will the Edinburgh Review also take its
next opportunity of manfully expressing its
regret that in too distempered a zeal for the
Circumlocution Office, it has been betrayed,
as to that Tottenham Court Road assertion,
into a hasty substitution of untruth for truth;
the discredit of which, it might have saved
itself, if it had been sufficiently cool and
considerate to be simply just? It will, too
possibly, have much to do by that time in
championing its Circumlocution Office in new
triumphs on the voyage out to India (God
knows that the Novelist has his private as