considered legislation is an impossibility, if all honest judgment is to be waived in deference to a so-called public opinion, which we are to take on trust, forgetting that it is we ourselves who, by falling in with it whilst we dissent from it, give it weight. Let no man, either Peer or Commoner, support or vote for what he deems a bad Bill or measure. We shall then, at all events, be able to ascertain what is the real state of public opinion: we shall then have something firm and trustworthy to proceed upon, and the Constitution will work better than if, whenever the political horizon is troubled or clouded, we are content to sacrifice our convictions to expediency. 6 By a strange perversity of fortune, the Duke of Wellington was the unconscious instrument of accelerating that increase of popular power which has proved so detrimental to the legitimate influence of the hereditary assembly. When at the meeting of Parliament, November 3, 1830, the Duke of Wellington declared that the constitution of the House of Commons was perfect, and that the wit of man could not à priori have devised anything so good, the general feeling was one of dismay. The House of Lords, usually so calm, showed signs of amazement and perturbation. The Duke whispered to one of his colleagues, "What can I have said which seems to make so great a disturbance? "You have announced the fall of your Government, that is all," replied his more clear-sighted colleague.'1 The Duke had taken his line deliberately before this Parliament met, and knew very well what he was saying. Moreover, it was the discontented Tories (who agreed with him about the constitution of the House of Commons) that turned the scale. But the demand. 1 Earl Russell-Introduction to Speeches.' The Duke lost a capital opportunity when he insisted on giving the forfeited franchise to East Retford. In the division on the Civil List (November, 1830), which caused his resignation, thirty Tories, headed by Mr. Bankes and Sir Charles Wetheral, voted in the majority. for parliamentary reform, like a pent-up current, had acquired depth and volume through his dogged resistance, and the resulting measure of 1832 destroyed that balance of power between the two branches of the Legislature which so largely contributed to their harmonious action and joint efficiency. It did so by severing the strongest of the connecting links between the two Houses, and by enabling the House of Commons to speak in the name of the people, which prior to 1832 would have been an idle pretension. A list has been given in "Notes and Queries' of fifty members in 1869, who, so far as could be ascertained, were the direct lineal descendants of those who sat for the same places respectively in the Long Parliament. Lord Stanhope, after enumerating thirty-five instances, remarks: These hereditary seats, combining in some degree the permanence of peerage with the popularity of elections—these bulwarks against any sudden and overwhelming tide of popular delusion-appear to me to have been one of the main causes of the good working of our ancient constitution, and still more of its long duration.' He also expatiates with well-founded enthusiasm on the number of eminent statesmen who owed to the smaller boroughs, now disfranchised, either their introduction into public life or their refuge during some part of it. But the essential element of a popular assembly was proportionally diminished, and it was no Radical reformer of our day, but Mr. Pitt, speaking in 1783, who said: 'This House is not the representative of the people of Great Britain; it is the representative of nominal boroughs, of ruined and exterminated towns, of noble families, of wealthy individuals, of foreign potentates.' He stated that one of these foreign potentates, the Nabob of Arcot, had eight nominees in the House. A well-known story authenticates the fact of a noble 1 History of England from the Peace of Utrecht,' &c., vol. i. chap. i. family having seven: a Whig Earl had as many when (in 1830) he patriotically bartered his boroughs for a marquisate, to be followed by a dukedom.1 The counties, says Mr. Massey, were in the hands of the great landowners, who mostly settled the representation by previous concert. When they could not agree, or when there was a rivalry between two great families, the contest, which in former ages would have been decided in the field, was fought at the hustings; and at least as many ancient houses have been ruined in modern times by these conflicts as were formerly destroyed by private war. He adds that the great feud between the houses of Lascelles and Wentworth, when they disputed the county of York for fourteen days, cost one hundred thousand pounds. It cost more than treble that sum. Wellesley Pole spent eighty thousand pounds in contesting Wilts, of which four thousand pounds went in ribbons. Unfortunately, the inherent corruption or perversity of poor human nature is such, that it has proved as difficult to convince the people at large of the wickedness of selling votes as of killing a pheasant or a hare. In some of the largest constituencies (Liverpool, for one), at the last general election, independent electors might have been bought by the hundred at five shillings a head. In one of his powerful speeches against Parliamentary Reform, Mr. Lowe, after reading a list of sums allowed as legitimate expenses (ranging from eight thousand pounds up to twenty-seven thousand), said: Now, I ask the House how it is possible that the institutions of this country can endure, if this kind of thing is to go on and increase? Let us hope that it may be checked, if not stopped, 1 The Duke of Norfolk had eleven members; Lord Lonsdale nine; Lord Darlington seven; the Duke of Rutland, the Marquis of Buckingham, and Lord Carrington six each.'-May. Three of these numbers include county members. 26 History of England during the Reign of George III.,' vol. i. chap. 9. by the ballot, and die out, like another kind of thing which grew out of it. When, towards the commencement of the last century, Henley, member for Southampton, was called to account by his constituents for voting against their interests for the promotion of his own, he replied, 'I bought you, and, by G-d, I will sell you.' This was the practice, if not the language, of his time. Bribery was reduced to a system soon after the Restoration, and even the 'great and good' King William did not venture to depart from it. Speaking of Sir John Trevor, Speaker and First Commissioner of the Great Seal in 1690, Burnet says: Being a Tory in principle, he undertook to manage that party, provided he was furnished with such sums of money as might purchase some votes and by him began the practice of buying off men, in which hitherto the King had kept to stricter rules. I took the liberty once to complain to the King of this method. He said he hated it as much as any man could do; but he saw it was not possible, considering the corruption of the age, to avoid it, unless he would endanger the whole.' Trevor was afterwards expelled for receiving as well as giving bribes. Mr. Massey has found no trace of the practice after the Grenville administration. Up to that period, he says, money was received and expected by members from the Minister whose measure they supported, apparently without any consciousness of infamy, very much in the same manner as the voters in certain boroughs received head-money from the candidate as a matter of right and custom. There is a letter in the Grenville Correspondence showing that the practice extended to the Peers: 'London, November 26, 1763. 'Honoured Sir,—I am very much obliged to you for that freedom of converse you this morning indulged me in, which I prize more than the lucrative advantage I then received. To show the sincerity of my words (pardon, sir, the, perhaps, over-niceness of my disposition) I return endorsed the bill for 300l. you favoured me with, as good manners would not permit my refusal of it, when tendered by you. "Your most obliged and most obedient servant, 'As a free horse wants no spur, so I stand in need of no inducement or douceur to lend my small assistance to the King or his friends in the present administration.' Fancy the state of morals when good manners would not permit the direct oral refusal of a bribe. A parallel story is told by Dr. King. Sir Robert Walpole, meeting a member of the opposition in the Court of Requests, took him aside and offered him a bank bill of 20007., which he put into his hands, for his vote. The member replied: 'Sir Robert, you have lately served some of my particular friends; and when my wife was last at Court, the King was very gracious to her, which must have happened at your instance. I should therefore think myself very ungrateful (putting the banknote into his pocket) if I were to refuse the favour you are now pleased to ask me.' The difference in amount may possibly account for the difference of conduct in the Commoner and the Peer. The dispute between the Duke of Newcastle and Fox touching the disposition of the secret-service money strikingly illustrates the venality of the House of Commons in 1754. My brother,' said the Duke, when he was at the Treasury, never told anybody what he did with the secret-service money. No more will I.' Fox, who' was differently situated from Pelham, replied: 'But how can I lead in the Commons without information on this head? How can I talk to gentlemen when I do not know which of them have received gratifications and which have not? And who is to have the disposal of places?' 'I myself,' said his Grace. 'How then am I to manage the House of Commons?' 'Oh, let the members of the House of |