are so in reality; never cease to recollect poor Strap and the runaway coat-holder!

Turn next to the great Grey party, with its body of gold and its feet of clay; what a magical chemistry is there not in a treasury bench! What scattered particles can it not conglomerate! What antipathetic opposites does it not combine! I have read in a quack's advertisement that gold may be made the most powerful of cements-I look to the ministry and I believe it! The supporters are worthy of the cabinet; they are equally various and equally consolidated; they shift with the ministers in every turn; bow, bend, and twist with every government involution-to-day they repeal a tax, to-morrow restore it; now they insist on a clause in the Irish Tithe Bill, as containing its best principle and now they erase it, as incontestably the most obnoxious; they reflect on the placid stream of their serene subservience every shadow in the April heaven of ministerial supremacy. But we shall find on a more investigating observation, that by the very loyalty of their followers, the Grey ministers are injuring themselves, "they are dragging their friends through the mire," they are directing against them the wrath of their constituents*-they are attracting to every sinuosity of creeping complaisance, the indignation and contempt of the country; in one homely sentence, they are endangering the return of their present majority to the next Parliament! That a Whig majority of one sort or another will be for some years returned by the operations of the Reform Bill, I have before said that I cannot doubt; but the next majority will be less vast and less confiding than the present! The great failing of the ministers is want of unity,-the Reform Bill united them, and during its progress they were strong; the Reform Bill passed, they had no longer a rallying point; they seem divided in opinion upon everything else-nay, they allow the misfortune. What mysterious hints do you not hear from every minister that he is not of the same mind as his brethren? Did not Mr. Stanley declare the other night, that on the principle of rendering church property at the disposal of Parliament, he would be disposed to divide on one side, and some of his companions on the other? On what an important question are these declared divisions! +

This want of unity betrays itself in all manner of oscillations, the most ludicrous and undignified! Now the ministerial pendulum

• There can he no doubt that it was in a great measure the very devotion of the ministerial majority of the Commons to Lord Grey in the first Reformed Parliament, that expelled so many of the Grey party in the Parliament that succeeded. Very few of the Radicals lost their seats.

Note to Third Edition.

And now, in correcting the third edition of this work, this very principle has ejected Mr. Stanley from the Cabinet. Again, the Cabinet is in danger-it is dissolved-Lord Grey has retired-it is remodelled-and certainly not without wis

lution; they are willing to hazard any experiment, so discontented are they with the Present. As the more prudent Tories are chiefly connected with the trading interest, so the more daring Tories are mainly connected with the agricultural; they rely on their numerous tenantry, on their strongholds of clanship and rustic connexions, with a confidence which makes them shrink little from even an armed collision with the people. Claiming amongst them many of that old indomitable band of high-born gentry-the true chivalric noblesse of the country, (for to mere titles there are no ancestral recollections, but blood can bequeath warlike and exciting traditions,) they are stimulated by the very apprehensions which disarm the traders. They are instinct with the Blackwood spirit of resistance; and in that perverted attachment to freedom, which belongs to an aristocracy, they deem it equally servile to obey a people they despise, as to succumb to a ministry they abhor. And of these, many are convinced, surrounded as they are in their visits to their estates by admiring subordinates, that their cause is less unpopular and more powerful in merc numerical force than it is represented. How can a Chandos, the idol of his county, full of courage and of pride, equally respected and beloved by the great agricultural body he represents,-how can he believe you when you tell him that the Tories are hated?-how can he listen with patience to the lukewarm concessions of Sir Robert Peel?—to the threats of the journalisis?-and to the assertion of the Whigs, that order and society itself rest solely on their continuance in office? It is this party that Sir Robert Peel must perpetually disgust. Willing to hazard all things to turn out the ministry, they must naturally divide themselves from a leader who is willing to concede many things to keep the ministry in power.

Such is the aspect of the once united and solid Tory party,—such the character of its two great divisions, between which the demarcation becomes daily more visible and wide.

Turn your eyes now to the ultra Radicals: what a motley, confused, jarring miscellany of irreconcilable theorists! Do two of them think alike? What connexion is there between the consistent Warburton and the contradictory Cobbett? What harmony betwixt the French philosophy of this man, and the English prejudices of that? here all is paper-money and passion, there all frigidity and fundholding. Each man, ensconced in his own crotchets, is jealous of the crotchets of the other. Each man is mad for popularity, and restless for position. Vainly would you hope to consolidate a great national party that shall embrace all these discordant materials; the best we can do is to incorporate the more reasonable, and leave the rest as isolated skirmishers, who are rather useful to harass your enemy, than to unite with your friends. For do not believe that all who call themselves your friends

are so in reality; never cease to recollect poor Strap and the runaway coat-holder!

Turn next to the great Grey party, with its body of gold and its feet of clay; what a magical chemistry is there not in a treasury bench! What scattered particles can it not conglomerate! What antipathetic opposites does it not combine! I have read in a quack's advertisement that gold may be made the most powerful of cements-I look to the ministry and I believe it! The supporters are worthy of the cabinet; they are equally various and equally consolidated; they shift with the ministers in every turn; bow, bend, and twist with every government involution-to-day they repeal a tax, to-morrow restore it; now they insist on a clause in the Irish Tithe Bill, as containing its best principle -and now they erase it, as incontestably the most obnoxious; they reflect on the placid stream of their serene subservience every shadow in the April heaven of ministerial supremacy. But we shall find on a more investigating observation, that by the very loyalty of their followers, the Grey ministers are injuring themselves, "they are dragging their friends through the mire," they are directing against them the wrath of their constituents-they are attracting to every sinuosity of creeping complaisance, the indignation and contempt of the country; in one homely sentence, they are endangering the return of their present majority to lhe next Parliament! That a Whig majority of one sort or another will be for some years returned by the operations of the Reform Bill, I have before said that I cannot doubt; but the next majority will be less vast and less confiding than the present! The great failing of the ministers is want of unity, -the Reform Bill united them, and during its progress they were strong; the Reform Bill passed, they had no longer a rallying point; they seem divided in opinion upon everything else-nay, they allow the misfortune. What mysterious hints do you not hear from every minister that he is not of the same mind as his brethren? Did not Mr. Stanley declare the other night, that on the principle of rendering church property at the disposal of Parliament, he would be disposed to divide on one side, and some of his companions on the other? On what an important question are these declared divisions! +

This want of unity betrays itself in all manner of oscillations, the most ludicrous and undignified! Now the ministerial pendulum

There can he no doubt that it was in a great measure the very devotion of the ministerial majority of the Commons to Lord Grey in the first Reformed Parliament, that expelled so many of the Grey party in the Parliament that succeeded. Very few of the Radicals lost their seats.

Note to Third Edition.

And now, in correcting the third edition of this work, this very principle has ejected Mr. Stanley from the Cabinet. Again, the Cabinet is in danger-it is dissolved-Lord Grey has retired-it is remodelled-and certainly not without wis

touches the Mountain Bench; now it vibrates to the crimson seat of his Grace of Wellington. Planning and counter-planning, bowing and explaining, saying and unsaying, bullying to-day and cringing tomorrow, behold the melancholy policy of men who clumsily attempt what Machiavel has termed the finest masterpiece in political science, viz. 66 to content the people, and to manage the nobles." Pressed by a crowd of jealous and hostile suitors, the only resource of our political Penelopes is in the web that they weave to conciliate each, and unravel in order to baffle all! My friends, as long as a government lacks unity, believe me it will be ever weak in good, and adherent to mischief. A man must move both legs in order to advance; if one leg stands still, he may flourish with the other to all eternity without stirring a step. We must therefore see if we cannot contrive to impart unity to the government, should we desire really to progress. How shall we effect this object? It seems to me that we might reasonably hope to effect it in the formation of a new, strong, enlightened, and rational party, on which the Government, in order to retain office, must lean for support. If we could make the ministers

as afraid of the House of Commons as they are of the House of Peers, you have no notion how mightily we should brighten their wits and spirit up their measures !

But the most singular infatuation in the present Parliament is, that while ministers are thus daily vacillating from every point in the compass, we are eternally told that we must place unlimited confidence in them. My good friends, is it not only in something firm, steady, and consistent, that any man ever places confidence ?-you cannot confide in a vessel that has no rudder, and which one wind drives out of sight and another wind as suddenly beats back into port. I dare day the ministers are very honest men, I will make no doubt of it. God forbid that I should! I am trustful in human integrity, and I think honesty natural to mankind; but political confidence is given to men not only in proportion to their own honesty, but also in proportion to the circumstances in which they are placed. An individual may repose trust where there is the inclination to fulfil engagement; but the destinies of the people are too grave for such generous credulity. A nation ought only to place its trust where there is no power to violate the compact. The difference between confidence in a despotism, and confidence in a representative government, is this: in the former we hope everything from the virtues of our rulers; in the latter, we

dom. It appears to promise indeed less individual talent, but more collective strength, it promises union.

Note to Fourth Edition.

It promised union, and has fulfilled the promise. The faults of Lord Grey's government are not those of Lord Melbourne's.

C

would leave nothing we can avoid leaving, to the chance of their

errors.

This large demand upon our confidence in men who are never two days the same, is not reasonable or just. You have lost that confidence; why should your representatives sacrifice everything to a shadow, which, like Peter Schemil's, is divorced from its bodily substance-yourselves?

CHAPTER VII

A PICTURE OF THE FIRST REFORMED HOUSE OF COMMONS.

It seems, then, that an independent party ought to be formed strong enough in numbers and in public opinion, to compel the ministers to a firm, a consistent, a liberal, and an independent policy. If so compelled, the Government would acquire unity of course, for those of their present comrades who shrank from that policy which, seemingly the most bold, is in troubled times really the most prudent, would naturally fall off as the policy was pursued. But does the present House of Commons contain the materials for the formation of such a party? I think that we have reason to hope that it may, there are little less than a hundred members of liberal opinions, yet neither tamely Whig nor fiercely Radical, a proportion of whom are already agreed as to the expediency of such a party, and upon the immediate principles it should attempt to promote. At the early commencement of the first session of the Reform Parliament such a party ought to have formed itself at once. But to the very name of Party, many had a superstitious objection. Others expected more from the Government than the Government has granted. Some asked who was to be leader; and some thought it a plan that might be disagreeable to the feelings of Lord Althorp.

The stream of time has flowed on, and Rusticus, perhaps, thinks it advisable to wait no longer. As a theory, I dislike the formation of parties. I will show you, my good friends, why, if you wish that independent men shall be useful men, a party at this moment is necessary in practice.

Just walk with me into the House of Commons-there! mount those benches; you are under the Speaker's gallery. The debate is