who have redeemed the pledges of a consistent life by propounding the Bill, and then adopting that very Bill as the means of maintaining a power thus obtained. It would be too outrageous an experiment, and too hazardous, upon the patient endurance and virtuous feelings of the world. There is a point beyond which the community may not safely be insulted.

Our fixed opinion is, that the leaders of the anti-reform party in both Houses are wholly incapable of such vile projects as we have been contemplating; but our remarks are addressed to a considerable portion of their followers-men whose support is little credit to any party; such men, we mean, as those who, on the Catholic question, only required half an hour to turn right about, and vent their feelings in acclamations for the proposal of a measure which they had flocked to the chambers of Parliament for the purpose of hailing with curses and abjuration.

This leads us to cast our regards back on the conduct pursued by the House of Lords upon that memorable occasion. Not suddenly, but within a reasonable time,' that distinguished assembly greatly altered the view it had ever before taken of the Catholic question. July 1828 saw them by a vast majority throw out the Bill,' as destructive to the Church establishment, and subversive of all sound religion in the empire; saw them resolved not to be intimidated by menaces' -determined to be above listening to clamour'-fixed in the purpose of never yielding to factious associations.' Eight months passed away: the interval was filled up with increased agitation-more audacious threatenings-clamours a thousand times more loud than before. Indeed, the marvellous affair of the Clare election, which returned the chief of the Catholics to Parliament, took place during the summer; and next spring found all the Catholics more firmly fixed than ever in their attitude of defiance. Yet was this the moment when the Lords wisely, prudently, judicially, patriotically saved the Empire from confusion, by abandoning their previous errors; and adopting the Bill the whole Bill', with an overwhelming majority of their Lordships' number. After conduct so worthy of admiration, shall we not do well if we expect them to follow the same course now ;-to do their duty to the country; yield their own prejudices; and despise the fools and the knaves who would inveigh against them for not sacrificing the peace of the Empire, and the stability of its institutions, to a senseless hankering after a hollow nominal consistency?

The position of the Lords may be summed up in a few words. There is no man of common understanding who now doubts the Bill must pass. Even its most violent opponents have openly

admitted long ago, that Schedules A and B are their inevitable fate, and that the reign of the rotten boroughs is at an end. Then, can human folly go farther than to postpone the period for a few months, and prolong the agitation into which the bare announcement of this delay would fling the community? Or, can any thing be more certain than that, when the people shall regain the mastery, it will no longer be the Bill, and nothing but the Bill, that will suffice? Half a year hence, it may be any thing but the Bill.

Our reasoning, we grant, would fail, if we supposed the handful of Peers, and other borough patrons, were able to cope with all the rest of the community. But this is so utterly out of the question, that we have no wish to disprove its possibility; nor have we any adversary to meet upon such ground.

For the reasons above stated, our anxiety is extreme, that the Lords may pass the Bill, and protect themselves and the Constitution from the necessity, dangerous to both, of defending the rest of the state from the combination of Peers, by adding to their number; or from the other far more frightful alternative of setting up the hereditary branch of Parliament as an object of attack to all the rest of the country. But if there be any part of that House more than all the rest interested in the event we anticipate, it is the representatives of the Church established by law. If the Bill is lost, and if it does not most clearly appear to have met its fate without the aid of the Bishops, that Church may continue to be established by law,-in the hearts of the people it will no longer find either stability or even tolerance. Public opinion may be right, or it may be wrong; but that it is at this time far less favourable to the Anglican Church than it ever was since the grand rebellion, which swept away both the Mitre and the Crown, is a fact not to be denied. The course pursued by certain of the prelates, is a proof they deem their house in some jeopardy. They are busying themselves with Church Reform; two or three bills are already in Parliament introduced by their hands; and an enquiry into the amount of Ecclesiastical Revenues and Emoluments is carrying on under their auspices, with the avowed intention of pursuing means for their restriction and equalisation. Is this a season when any thing short of insanity could lead these Right Reverend Fathers to commit themselves in a struggle with the whole body of the people? Public indignation might be turned in the bitter disappointment of their hopes against the Lords' House generally; but the conduct of the Prelates alone can prevent a very disproportionate share of the tempest, and in the very first instance, from being poured upon the compartment of the mansion where the Fathers of the Church

dwell. From their wise regard for the best interests of that Church, we expect such conduct as will effectually throw the blame, should blame be incurred by the Peers at large, away from the Bishops' bench.

The Lords in general will find themselves, beyond all powers of description, a more important branch of the legislature, and more beloved as well as respected in their individual capacities, after they shall have yielded to the universal desire of their country. We think not a word is wanted to demonstrate that proposition. But we entreat them, if they doubt it, to look at one or two plain facts. When, before, were the members of the King's family, with hardly any exception, not only able to show themselves to the people on all public occasions, without the least fear of insult, but received everywhere with an honest and hearty enthusiasm, such as no other nation showed, or ever can show? Every occasion of the King appearing, is like the coming forth of George the Third in 1788, after his first illness. Assuredly since that period, so nearly coinciding with the French Revolution, such royal popularity has been unknown, except to such branches of the illustrious family as chanced to be under a cloud at Court. Now, see how tranquil, nay cheerful and good-humoured, all classes of the people are in every part of the country! That such feelings may be as permanent as they are widely spread, and that the aristocracy may do nothing to forfeit the place they now hold in the hearts of their fellow-subjects, is our most earnest prayer.

The preceding pages have not been filled with any remarks upon the Pamphlet now before us. But it well deserves the attention of the noble persons to whom it is principally addressed. We have not often read an abler production;-at once most sensibly and clearly reasoned, and written with spirit and point. The author is said to be a military gentleman of the name of Rich we hope this will not be the only effort of his pen. As a specimen of his work we subjoin a passage or two.

One more view of the question, and I have done. We have, hitherto, regarded the effect a rejection of the Bill would have upon the Ministers, on Parliament, and through Parliament on the people, upon what may be termed the legitimate and constitutional result of a rejection by the Lords. Let us now take a hasty glimpse of what might be its direct and immediate effect upon the people, upon what be termed its unconstitutional and revolutionary effect. Let us

may

see.

The Bill is sent up to the Lords-it is rejected; for important

modifications, or long adjournments of debate, will be considered by the people as tantamount to rejection.

It is rejected! I envy not the nightmare dreams, or the stolid sleep of each Noble Lord of that fatal Majority that shall throw out the Bill.

It is rejected! The evil report will rapidly spread its dark wings from one end of the Isle to the other. It will cross over to Ireland. The black banner will carry the heavy tidings from Glasgow, to the uttermost Highlands.

• It is rejected! Will the people of England sit patiently down? Will they hang up their harps on the willows of despair, till it is their Lords' good pleasure that the people's representatives should be the representatives of the people? I think not. Then, what will they do? Will they carry their favourite Bill, their Bill of Rights, by force of arms? No-the days of brute force are gone to sleep with the nights of ignorance; there are measures more consonant to the present times. Association, unanimity of design, resistance within legal bounds,— these the people will employ, and, as with one voice, they will say, "The present House of Lords will not pass our Bill; but our Bill must be passed-our Commons desire it-our King sanctions it; and we are pledged to it. Another House of Lords-another third estate must be found, who will pass our Bill." Thus, and more dangerously may they reason. Noble lords may start-may frown-may imprecate-may threaten; but the energies of this mighty empire are not to be put down by a sneer or a vote; they may suddenly spring up, as in a night, and scatter their opponents, as mists from before the face of the morning. The people may ask, can there be men with intellects so dull, so inobservant, and so inexperienced, who, though born, and bred, and living in the light of this century, can yet see only with the twilight perception of the dark ages? Men, whose notions of revolutions are formed from the traditions of days, when the art of reading and writing was a distinction, a printing-press a curiosity, and a journey from York to London an epoch in life? Are there men, who, with the recent experience of the last twelve months, can read of Birmingham, and of Glasgow, and of a thousand and one other Unions-who can hear of the avidity with which the public papers are sought for in every corner of the kingdom, and who can witness the feverish excitement of the public mind, and yet, forsooth, loll upon their hereditary seats, and fancy a frown from a weak majority of the weakest portion of the State, can frighten the great mass of their fellow-subjects from the pursuit of their legitimate desires? If there be such men, an excited people may add, they are no longer fit to be our legislators; the House of Lords must be adapted to the present stage of civilisation. We will no longer

But, no-I will not further pursue this revolutionary picture; it is an ungrateful subject, such as one would not willingly contemplate, much less exhibit to the public gaze. But it imperatively behooves those Noble Lords who think of rejecting the Bill, to fill up this outline, and paint it with its brightest and most fearful colours-to finish it carefully-to look into its details-and then to place it opposite their own little vignette of a modified Reform;-the terrible Last

VOL. LIV. NO. CVII.

S

Judgment of Michael Angelo, against the last lithographic print of the day. These are the two extremes; the chances for the possible attainment of the one, are not greater than for the ruinous sequence of the other.'

After stating that the final and permanent loss of the Bill must be the resignation of the Ministry-he asks, who will take Earl Grey's place? He then proceeds with great spirit as follows:

Who will be the British Polignac? He must be a bold man; for with a small declared majority in the weakest fraction of the State, whose construction is essentially defensive, he must be prepared for a contest with the offensive vigour and growing energies of the Commons, fresh from their elections; he must be prepared to find them backed by the angry enthusiasm of the people, supported by the mighty echoes of the press, and sanctioned by the approval of the most popular Monarch that has ever been seated on the British Throne.

He must be a disloyal man; for he must contemplate approaching that royal ear with suggestions for a cowardly falsehood, in the shape of an Anti-Reform message to Parliament.

'He must be a blind and prejudiced man; for he must fancy, that, by dissolving the present House of Commons, he shall be able to obtain one of a less reforming disposition; as if the desire of a people, just baffled at the moment of gratification, should be more quiescent under such disappointment, than when checked, as it was in the spring, at its outset.

'He must be a rash man, and a bad man; for he must be willing to commit the coronets of the Peers, and the peace of the nation, to the dangerous reaction of a second and third dissolution.

Where then shall be found this bold, bad, blind, rash, prejudiced, disloyal person? Nowhere, I trust; and, least of all, in the House of Lords.

And yet, if the Bill be thrown out, and Lord Grey resign, some one must take his place; and the first act of this Great Unknown must be a dissolution; for he, and his colleagues, could not possibly carry on the government for an hour with the present House of Commons. This is apparent to every one; and yet the chances of gaining an AntiReform majority in a new House, are infinitely small. I should say impossible; for that man must think lightly of his countrymen, who can imagine, that partial resistance from the Lords should frighten the electors of Great Britain from their consistency, should make them eat their own words, should make them desert their representatives, for having fulfilled those very pledges, which they themselves, not six months ago, drew from them on their hustings. The thing is impossible; but as the Tories have already shown themselves blind to public opinion, I will suppose it possible for them to make the attempt, and to succeed in making the constituency of this country traitors to themselves, and to their chosen advocates. In short, for argument's sake, I will suppose, for a moment, that they have gained a majority in their new House-what would be the result?-The defeat of the Reform Bill, such as it now is, but not of Reform itself; for they themselves