Roumes the plishments I know-whose varied talents I admire, but in whom I certainly desiderate soundness of judgment and closeness of argument—a theme de rebuspublicis, or de motû civium, or de novarum rerum cupiditate-on change, on democracies, on republicanism, on anarchy; and on these interesting but somewhat trite and even threadbare subjects, my noble friend made one of the most lucid, most terse, most classical, and, as far as such efforts will admit of eloquence, most eloquent exercitations that ever proceeded His argument from mortal pen. My noble friend very point at proceeded altogether on a false assumption; it was on a fiction of his own brain, on a device of his own imagination, that he spoke throughout. He first assumed that the bill meant change and revolution, and on change and revolution he predicted voluminously and successfully. So much for the critical merits of his performance; but, practically viewed, regarded as an argument on the ques- | tion before us, it is to be wholly left out of view; it was quite beside the matter. If this bill be change and be revolution, there is no resisting the conclusions of my noble friend. But on that point I am at issue with him; and he begins by taking the thing in dispute for granted. I deny that this bill is change, in the bad sense of the word; nor does it lead to, nor has it any connection with revolution, except so far as it has a direct tendency to prevent revolution. against the for innova My noble friend, in the course of his essay, His charges talked to you of this administration as ministry as one prone to change; he told you that beaver its whole system was a system of tion. changes; and he selected as the first change on which he would ring a loud peal, that which he said we had made in our system of finance. If he is so averse to our making alterations in our scheme of finance the very first year we have been in office, what does he think, I ask, of Mr. Pitt's budgets, of which never one passed without undergoing changes in almost every one tax, besides those altogether abandoned? If our budget had been carried as it was originally brought in, with a remission of the timber duty, and the candle duty, and the coal duty, it would have been distinguished beyond all others only as having given substantial relief to the people on those very trivial and unnecessary articles, I suppose, of human life-fire, and light, and lodging. Then, our law reform is another change which my noble friend charged the gov ernment with being madly bent on effecting. Scarcely had the Lord President of the Council risen to answer the objection raised against us on this score, than up started my noble friend to assert that he had not pressed any such objection into his service. My Lords, I am not in the habit of taking a note of what falls from any noble Lord in debate-it is not my practicebut by some fatality it did so happen that, while my noble friend was speaking, I took a note of his observations, of which I will take the liberty Concerning public affairs, or civil commotions, or the love of political change as regard of reading you the very first line. Change and revolution; all is change; among the first — law." I took that note, because I was somewhat surprised at the observation, knowing, as I did, that this law reform had met with the approbation of my noble friend himself; and, what was yet more satisfactory to my mind, it had received the sanction of your Lordships, and had been passed through all its stages without even a division. My noble friend then told us, still reconnoitering our position at a distance, or, at most, partaking in an occasional skirmish, but holding himself aloof from the main battle-be told us that this bill came recommended neither by the weight of ancient authority nor by the spirit of modern refinement; that this attack on our present system was tinty not supported by the experience of the past, nor sanctioned by any appearance of the great mind of the master genins of our precursors in later times. As to the weight of ancient authority, skilled as my noble friend is in every branch of literary history, I am obliged to tell him he is inaccurate; and, because it may afford him some consolation in this his day of discomfiture and anguish, I will supply the defect which exists in his historical recollections; for an author, the first of satirists in any age-Dean Swift, with whom my noble friend must have some sympathy, since he closely imitates him in this respect, that as the Dean satirized, under the name of man, a being who had no existence save in his own imagination. so my noble friend attacks. under the name of the bill, a fancy of his own, a creature of his fertile brain, and which has no earthly connection with the real ink and parchment bill before you-Dean Swift, who was never yet represented as a man prone to change, who was not a Radical, who was not a Jacobin (for, indeed, those terms were in his day unknown)— Dean Swift, who was not even a Whig, but, in the language of the times, a regular, stanch, thick-and-thin Tory, while enumerating the absurdities in our system, which required an adequate and efficient remedy, says: "It is absurd that the boroughs, which are decayed, and destitute both of trade and population, are not extinguished" (or, as we should say, in the language of the bill, which was as unknown to Dean Swift as it is now to my noble friend, put into schedule A.), "because," adds the Dean," they return members who represent nobody at all;" so here he adopts the first branch of the measure; and next he approves of the other great limb, for the second grand absurdity which he remarks is, "that several large towns are not represented, though they are filled with those who increase mightily the trade of the realm." Then as to shortening the duration of Parliaments, on which we have not introduced a single provision into the bill-if we had, what a cry should we have heard about the statesmen in Queen Anne's day, the great men who lived in the days of Blenheim, and during the period sung of by my noble friend, from Blenheim to Waterloo; how we should have been taunted with the Somerses and Godolphins, and their cotemporaries, the Swifts and the Addisons! What would they have said of such a change? Yet what did the same Dean Swift, the cotemporary of Somers and Godolphin, the friend of Addison, who sang the glories of Blenheim, the origin of my noble friend's period-what did the Dean, inspired by all the wisdom of ancient times, say to shortening the duration of Parliaments? "I have a strong love for the good old fashion of Gothic Parliaments, which were only of one year's duration." Such is the ground, such the vouchers, upon the authority of which my noble friend, in good set phrase, sets the weight of ancient wisdom against the errors of the Reformers, and triumphs in the round denial that we have any thing in our favor like the sanction of authority; and it turns out, after all, that the wise men of the olden time promulgated their opinions on the subject in such clear, and decisive, and vigorous terms, that if they were living in our days, and giving utterance to the same sentiments, they would be set down rather for determined Radicals than for enemies of reform. an answer would be very unreasonable; for, he strike him that the present is not the case of (2) Lord Then my noble friend, advancing from forand as desti- mer times to our own, asked who and tute of talent. what they are that form the cabinet of the day? To such questions it would be unbecoming in me to hazard a reply. I do not find fault with my noble friend for asking them; I admit that it is fair to ask who are they that propound any measure, especially when it comes in the shape of a great change. The noble Earl then complained of our poverty of genius-absence of commanding talents-want of master minds and even our destitution of eloquence, a topic probably suggested by my noble friend's [Lord Grey] display, who opened the debate, and whose efforts in that kind are certainly very different from those which the noble Earl seems to admire. But if it be a wise rule to ask by whom a measure is propounded before you give it implicit confidence, it certainly can not be an un-flecting men? wise rule to ask, on the other hand, who and One noble Lord [Lord Winchelsea] there is what be they by whom that measure is resisted, whose judgment we are called upon imbefore you finally reject it on their bare author- plicitly to trust, and who expressed him- Winchelsea. ity. Nor can I agree with a noble friend of self with much indignation, and yet with entire mine [Lord Caernarvon], who spoke last night, honesty of purpose, against this measure. No and who laid down one doctrine on man is, in my opinion, more single-hearted; no this subject at which I marveled great- man more incorruptible. But in his present enLord Caernar ly. It was one of his many allego-mity to this bill, which he describes as pregnant ries-for they were not metaphors, with much mischief to the Constitution, he gives nor yet similes-some of them, indeed, were me reason to doubt the soundness of the resoluendless, especially when my noble friend took to tion which would take him as a guide, from the the water, and embarked us on board of his ship fact of his having been not more than five or six -for want of steam, I thought we should never months ago most friendly to its provisions, and have got to the end of our voyage. When we expressed the most unbounded confidence in the reply to their arguments against our measure, by government which proposed it. Ought not this asking what reform they have got of their own to make us pause before we place our consciento offer, he compares us to some host, who, hav-ces in his keeping-before we surrender up our ing placed before his friends an uneatable dinner, which they naturally found fault with, should say, Gentlemen, you are very hard to please; I have set a number of dishes before you which you can not eat; now, what dishes can you dress yourselves?" My noble friend says that such Remarks in passing on an lustration of 66 judgment to his prudence-before we believe in Proof. The Lord Chancellor. Then I have been prac-ing around him on all sides-surveying what had ticed upon, if it is not so; and the noble occurred in the last forty or fifty years-glanc Earl's assertion should be of itself sufficient ing above him and below him, around him and to convince me that I have been practiced on. behind him-watching every circumstance of the But I can assure the noble Earl that this has been past-anticipating every circumstance of the fuhanded to me as an extract from a speech which ture-scanning every sign of the times-taking he made to a meeting of the county of Kent, held into his account all the considerations upon which at Maidstone, on the 24th of last March: "They a lawgiver ought to reckon-regarding also the have not got reform yet; but when the measure wishes, the vehement desires, not to say absolute does come, as I am persuaded it will come, into demands, of the whole country for some immethe law of the land" (a loud cry of "No," diate reform-concentrates all his wisdom in this from the opposition Lords). Then, if noble Lords proposition-the result, the practical result of ali will not let me proceed quietly, I must begin his deliberations, and all his lookings about, and again, and this time I will go further back. The all his scannings of circumstances—the whole speech represents the noble Earl to have said, produce of his thoughts, by the value of which "His Majesty's government is entitled to the you are to try the safety of his counsels-namethanks of the country. Earl Grey, with his dis- ly, that you should suspend all your operations tinguished talents, unites a political honesty not on this bill for two years, and, I suppose, two to be surpassed, and leaves behind him, at an days, to give the people—what? breathing time. immeasurable distance, those who have aban- The noble Lord takes a leaf out of the book of doned their principles and deceived their friends. the noble Duke near him-a leaf, which I beThe noble Lord is entitled to the eternal grati-lieve the noble Duke himself would now wish tude of his country for the manner in which he canceled. The noble Duke, shortly before he has brought forward this question. I maintain proposed the great measure of Catholic emanci that he deserves the support of the country at pation, had said, "Before I can support that large." And, my Lords, the way in which I was measure, I should wish that the whole question practiced on to believe that all this praise was might sink into oblivion." But the proposition not referable to the timber duties, but to reform, of the noble Earl, though based on the same idea. I shall now explain. It is in the next passage goes still further. "Bury," says he, "this of the same speech: "They have not got reform measure of reform in oblivion for two years and yet; but when the measure does come, as I am two days, and then see, good people, what I will persuaded it will come, into the law of the land, do for you." And then what will the noble it will consolidate, establish, and strengthen our Lord do for the good people? Why, nothingglorious Constitution; and not only operate for neither more nor less than nothing. We, innothe general welfare and happiness of the country, cents that we were, fancied that the noble Lord but will also render an act of justice to the great must, after all his promises, really mean to do and influential body of the people. The meas- something; and thought that he had said someure has not yet been introduced to that House of what of bribery-of doing a little about bribery which I am a member." (Lord Winchelsea and his friends here cheered loudly.) Ay, but it had been debated in the House of Commons for near a month it had been published in all books, pamphlets, and newspapers-it had been discussed in all companies and societies-and I will undertake to assert that there was not one single man in the county of Kent who did not know that Lord John Russell's bill was a bill for parliamentary reform. The speech thus concludes: "When the bill is brought forward in that House of which I am a member, I shall be at my post, ready to give it my most hearty and cordial”— opposition? no-"support." But why do I allude to this speech at all? Merely to show that if those who oppose the bill say to us, "Who are you that propound it?" and make our previous conduct a ground for rejecting it, through distrust of its authors, we have a right to reply to them with another question, and to ask, "Who are you that resist it, and what were your previous opinions regarding it ?" which was his expression; but when we mentioned our supposition that he really meant to go as far as to support a bill for the more effectual prevention of bribery at elections, the noble Lord told us he would do no such thing. The Earl of Mansfield. I gave no opinion on the point. The Lord Chancellor. Exactly so. The noble Lord reserves his opinion as to whether he would put down bribery, for two years and two days; and when they are expired, he, peradventure. may inform us whether he will give us leave to bring in a bill to prevent bribery; not all kinds of bribery-that would be radical work—but as far as the giving away of ribbons goes, leaving beer untouched, and agreeably to the venerable practice of the olden time. Another noble Lord, a friend of mine, whose honesty and frankness stamp all he Lord says with still greater value than it de- Waarde rives from mere talent [Lord Wharncliffe), would have you believe that all the peti- Denies that the Another noble Lord [Lord Mansfield] has ar- tions under which your table now pet bons pre gued this question with great ability and show groans are indeed for reform, but not vor of the bik of learning; and if we are to take him as our for this bill, which he actually says the people (3) Lord Mans guide, we must also look at the pan- dislike. Now is not this a droll way for the pe acea which he provides for us in case ple to act, if we are to take my noble friend's of rejection That noble Lord, look-statement as true? First of all, it is an odd Leld asks a delay of the question for two years sented area in The way in meet him not on "the accustomed hill," for "Me miserable! which way shall I fly Which way I fly, Reform-myself Reform!" time they have taken to petition for reform, if | they do not like this bill. I should say that if they petition for reform while this particular measure is passing through the House, it is a proof that the bill contains the reform they want. Surely, when I see the good men of this country -the intelligent and industrious classes of the community-now coming forward, not by thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, I can infer nothing from their conduct but that this is the bill, and the only bill, for which they petition? But if they really want some other than the bill proposes, is it not still more unaccountable that they should one and all petition, not for that other reform, but for this very measure? The proposition of my noble friend is, that they love reform in general, but hate this particular plan; and the proof of it is this, that their petitions all pray earnestly for this particular plan, and say not a word of general reform. Highly as I prize the integrity of my noble friend-much as I admire his good sense on other occasions-I must say that, on this occasion, I descry not his better judgment, and if I estimate how far he is a safe guide, either as a witness to facts or as a judge of measures, by his success in the present in stance; in either capacity, I can not hesitate in recommending your Lordships not to follow him. As a witness to facts, never was failure more complete. The bill, said he, has no friends any where; and he mentioned Bond which he is met Street as one of his walks, where he by the people. could not enter a shop without finding its enemies abound. No sooner had Bond Street escaped his lips, than up comes a petition to your Lordships from nearly all its shop-keep-what guides are safe to follow on this subject. ers, affirming that their sentiments have been misrepresented, for they are all champions of the bill. My noble friend then says, "Oh, I did not mean the shop-keepers of Bond Street in particular; I might have said any other street, as St. James's equally." No sooner does that unfortunate declaration get abroad, than the shopkeepers of St. James's Street are up in arms, and forth comes a petition similar to that from Bond Street. My noble friend is descried moving through Regent Street, and away scamper all the inhabitants, fancying that he is in quest of anti-reformers-sign a requisition to the church-wardens and the householders, one and all, declare themselves friendly to the bill. Whither shall he go -what street shall he enter, in what alley shall he take refuge since the inhabitants of every street, and lane, and alley, feel it necessary, in self-defense, to become signers and petitioners, as soon as he makes his appearance among them? If harassed by reformers on land, my noble friend goes down to the water, the thousand reformers greet him, whose petition [Lambeth's] I this day presented to your Lordships. If he were to get into a hackney-coach, the very coachmen and their attendants would feel it their duty to assemble and petition. Wherever there is a street, an alley, a passage, nay, a river, a wherry, or a hackney-coach, these, because inhabited, become forbidden and tabooed to my noble friend. I may Many now follow men who say that reform is necessary, and yet object to this bill as being too large; that is, too efficient. This may be very incorrect; but it is worse; it is mixed up with a gross delusion which can never deceive the country; for I will now say, once for all, that every one argument which has been urged by those leaders is as good against moderate reform as it is against this bill. Not a single reason they give, not a topic they handle, not an illustration they resort to, not a figure of speech they use, not even a flower they fling about, that does not prove or illustrate the position of no reform." All their speeches, from beginning to end, are railing against the smallest as against the greatest change, and yet all the while they call themselves reformers! Are they, then, safe guides for any man who is prepared to allow any reform, however moderate, of any abuse, however glaring? 66 Of another noble Earl [Lord Harrowby], whose arguments, well selected and (5.) Lord ably put, were yet received with such Harrowby exaggerated admiration by his friends as plainly showed how pressing were their demands for a tolerable defender, we have heard it said, again and again, that no answer whatever has been given to his speech. I am sure I mean no disrespect to that noble Earl when I venture to remark the infinite superiority in all things, but es the minis rashness and pre speeches of my noble friend by his House of Commons' name, again and again calling him Charles Grey, without even the prefix of Mr. ; nay, could himself repeatedly comment upon those very speeches of the other House-what will your Lordships say of the fatal effects of present fear in warping and distorting a naturally just mind, when you find this same noble Earl interrupt the Chancellor of Ireland [Lord Plunkett], because he most regularly, most orderly, referred to the public conduct of a right honorable Baronet [Sir Robert Peel], exhibited in a former Parliament, and now become a matter of history? Surely, surely, nothing more is wanted to show that all the rashness, all the heedlessness, all the unreflecting precipitancy is not to be found upon the right hand of the woolsack [ministerial side of the House]; and that they who have hurried across the sea, in breathless impatience, to throw out the bill, might probably, had they been at home, and allowed themselves time for sober reflection, have been found among the friends of a measure which they now so acrimoniously oppose! So much for the qual ifications of the noble Lords to act safely as our guides, according to the general view of the question as one of mere authority, taken by my noble friend [Lord Dudley]. But I am quite will pecially in argument, of such speeches as those of the noble Marquess [Marquess Lansdowne] and the noble Viscount [Viscount Melbourne]. The former, in his most masterly answer, left but little of the speech for any other antagonist to destroy. The latter, while he charmed us with the fine eloquence that pervaded his discourse, and fixed our thoughts by the wisdom and depth of reflection that informed it, won all hearers by his candor and sincerity. Little, indeed, have they left for me to demolish; yet if any thing remain, it may be as well we should take it to pieces. But I am first considering the noble Earl in the light of one professing to be a safe guide for your Lordships. What, then, are his claims to the praise of calmness and impartiality? For the constant cry against the governCharges ment is, "You are hasty, rash, intemtry with perate men. You know not what you do; your adversaries are the true state cipitancy physicians; look at their considerate deportment; imitate their solemn caution." This is the sort of thing we hear in private as well as public. "See such an one-he is a man of prudence, and a discreet (the olden times called such a sad) man; he is not averse to all innovation, but dislikes precipitancy; he is calm; just to all sides alike; never gives a hasty opinion; a safe one to follow; look how he votes."ing to rest the subject upon a higher ground, I have done this on the present occasion; and, and to take it upon reason, and not upon authorunderstanding the noble Earl might be the sort ity. I will therefore follow the noble Ear} [Lord of personage intended, I have watched him. Harrowby] somewhat more closely through his Common consistency was, of course, to be, at all argument, the boast of our antagonists. events, expected in this safe model-some con- He began with historical matter, and gave a nection between the premises and conclusion, the very fair and manly explanation of speech and the vote. I listened to the speech, his family's connection with the borand also, with many others, expected that an ough of Tiverton. This, he said, avowal of all, or nearly all the principles of the would set him rectus in curià, as he bill would have ended in a vote for the second phrased it. If by this he meant that he should reading, which might suffer the committee to thence appear to have no interest in opposing discuss its details, the only subject of controversy the bill, I can not agree with him; but certainwith the noble Earl. But no such thing; he is ly his narrative, coupled with a few additions by a reformer, approves the principle, objecting to way of reference, which may be made to it the details, and therefore he votes against it in throws considerable light upon the system of rotthe lump, details, principle, and all. But soon ten boroughs. The influence by which his famafter his own speech closed, he interrupted an-ily have so long returned the two members is, it other, that of my noble and learned friend [Lord Plunkett] to give us a marvelous sample of calm and impartial judgment. What do you think of the cool head, the unruffled temper, the same things the unbiased mind of that manmost candid and most acute as he is, when not under the domination of alarmwho could listen, without even a gesture of disapprobation, to the speech of one noble Lord [Lord Mansfield], professedly not extemporaneous; for he, with becoming, though unnecessary modesty, disclaims the faculty of speaking offhand, but elaborately prepared, in answer to a member of the other House, and in further answer to a quarto volume, published by him-silent and unmoved, could hear another speech, made up of extracts from the House of Commons' debates-could listen and make no sign when a noble Marquess [Marquess Londonderry] referred to the House of Commons' And then shows himself. Lord Harrowby may control To influence as wel erton by officia as by property seems, personal, and in no way connected with property. This may be very true; for certainly the noble Lord has no property within a hundred miles of the place; yet, if it is true, what becomes of the cry, raised by his Lordship, about property? But let that pass-the influence, then, is personal-ay, but it may be personal, and yet be official also. The family of the noble Earl has for a long series of years been in high office, ever since the time when its founder also laid the foundations of the borough connection, as Solicitor General. By some accident or other, they have always been connected with the gov ernment, as well as the borough. I venture to suspect that the matter of patronage may have had some share in cementing the attachment of the men of Tiverton to the house of Ryder. I take leave to suggest the bare possibility of many such men having always held local and other places-of the voters and their families having |