And why is this? Why has our country, with all the ten plagues raging around her, been a land of Goshen? Everywhere else was the thunder and the fire running along the ground,—a very grievous storm,—a storm such as there was none like it since man was on the earth; yet everything tranquil here; and then again thick night, darkness that might be felt; and yet light in all our dwellings. We owe this singular happiness, under the blessing of God, to a wise and noble constitution, the work of many generations of great men. Let us profit by experience; and let us be thankful that we profit by the experience of others, and not by our own. Let us prize our constitution: let us purify it: let us amend it; but let us not destroy it. Let us shun extremes, not only because each extreme is in itself a positive evil, but also because each extreme necessarily engenders its opposite. If we love civil and religious freedom, let us in the day of danger uphold law and order. If we are zealous for law and order, let us prize, as the best safeguard of law and order, civil and religious freedom.

Yes, Gentlemen; if I am asked why we are free with servitude all around us, why our Habeas Corpus Act has not been suspended, why our press is still subject to no censor, why we still have the liberty of association, why our representative institutions still abide in all their strength, I answer, It is because in the year of revolutions we stood firmly by our Government in its peril; and, if I am asked why we stood by our Government in its peril, when men all around us were engaged in pulling Governments down, I answer, It was because we knew that though our Government was not a perfect Government, it was a good Government, that its faults admitted of peaceable and legal remedies, that it had never inflexibly opposed just demands, that we had obtained concessions of inestimable value, not by beating the drum, not by ringing the tocsin, not by tearing up the pavement, not by running to the gunsmiths' shops to search for arms, but by the mere force of reason and public opinion. And, Gentlemen, preeminent among those pacific victories of reason and public opinion, the recollection of which chiefly, I believe, carried us safely through the year of revolutions and through the year of counter-revolutions, I would place two great reforms, inseparably associated, one with the memory of an illustrious man, who is now beyond the reach of envy, the other with the name of another illustrious man, who is still, and, I hope, long will be, a living mark for distinction. I speak of the great commercial reform of 1846, the work of Sir Robert Peel, and of the great parliamentary reform of 1832, the work of many eminent statesmen, among whom none was more conspicuous than Lord John Russell. I particularly call your attention to those two great reforms, because it will, in my opinion, be the especial duty of that House of Commons in which, by your distinguished favour, I have a seat, to defend the commercial reform of Sir Robert Peel, and to perfect and extend the parliamentary reform of Lord John Russell.

With respect to the commercial reform, though I say it will be a sacred duty to defend it, I do not apprehend that we shall find the task very difficult. Indeed, I doubt whether we have any reason to apprehend a direct attack upon the system now established. From the expressions used during the last session, and during the late elections, by the Ministers and their adherents, I should, I confess, find it utterly impossible to draw any inference whatever. They have contradicted each other; and they have contradicted themselves. Nothing would be easier than to select from their speeches passages which would prove them to be Freetraders, and passages which would prove them to be protectionists. But, in truth, the only inference which can properly be drawn from a speech of one of these gentlemen in favour of Free Trade is, that, when he spoke, he was standing for a town; and the only inference which can be drawn from the speech of another in favour of Protection is, that, when he spoke, he was standing for a county. I quitted London in the heat of the elections. I left behind me a Tory candidate for Westminster and a Tory candidate for Middlesex, loudly proclaiming themselves Derbyites and Freetraders. All along my journey through Berkshire and Wiltshire I heard nothing but the cry of Derby and Protection; but when I got to Bristol, the cry was Derby and Free Trade again. On one side of the Wash, Lord Stanley, the Under-Secretary of State for the Foreign Department, a young nobleman of great promise, a young nobleman who appears to me to inherit a large portion of his father's ability and energy, held language which was universally understood to indicate that the Government had altogether abandoned all thought of Protection. Lord Stanley was addressing the inhabitants of a town. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Wash, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was haranguing the farmers of Lincolnshire; and, when somebody took it upon him to ask, "What will you do, Mr Christopher, if Lord Derby abandons Protection?" the Chancellor of the Duchy refused to answer a question so monstrous, so insulting to Lord Derby. "I will stand by Lord Derby," he said, "because I know that Lord Derby will stand by Protection." Well, these opposite declarations of two eminent persons, both likely to know the mind of Lord Derby on the subject, go forth, and are taken up by less distinguished adherents of the party. The Tory candidate for Leicestershire says, "I put faith in Mr Christopher: while you see Mr Christopher in the Government, you may be assured that agriculture will be protected." But, in East Surrey, which is really a suburb of London, I find the Tory candidate saying, "Never mind Mr Christopher. I trust to Lord Stanley. What should Mr Christopher know on the subject? He is not in the Cabinet: he can tell you nothing about it." Nay, these tactics were carried so far that Tories who had formerly been for Free Trade, turned Protectionists if they stood for counties; and Tories, who had always been furious Protectionists, declared for Free Trade, without scruple or shame, if they stood for large towns. Take for example Lord Maidstone. He was once one of the most vehement Protectionists in England, and put forth a small volume, which, as I am an elector of Westminster, and as he was a candidate for Westminster, I thought it my duty to buy, in order to understand his opinions. It is entitled Free Trade Hexameters. Of the poetical merits of Lord Maidstone's hexameters I shall not presume to give an opinion. You may all form an opinion for yourselves by ordering copies. They may easily be procured: for I was assured, when I bought mine in Bond Street, that the supply on hand was still considerable. But of the political merits of Lord Maidstone's hexameters I can speak with confidence; and it is impossible to conceive a fiercer attack, according to the measure of the power of the assailant, than that which his lordship made on Sir Robert Peel's policy. On the other hand, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, who is now Solicitor General, and who was Solicitor General under Sir Robert Peel, voted steadily with Sir Robert Peel, doubtless from a regard to the public interest, which would have suffered greatly by the retirement of so able a lawyer from the service of the Crown. Sir Fitzroy did not think it necessary to lay down his office even when Sir Robert Peel brought in the bill which established a free trade in corn. But unfortunately, Lord Maidstone becomes a candidate for the City of Westminster, and Sir Fitzroy Kelly stands for an agricultural county. Instantly, therefore, Lord Maidstone forgets his verses, and Sir Fitzroy Kelly forgets his votes. Lord Maidstone declares himself a convert to the opinions of Sir Robert Peel; and Sir Robert Peel's own Solicitor General lifts up his head intrepidly, and makes a speech, apparently composed out of Lord Maidstone's hexameters.

It is therefore, Gentlemen, utterly impossible for me to pretend to infer, from the language held by the members of the Government, and their adherents, what course they will take on the subject of Protection. Nevertheless, I confidently say that the system established by Sir Robert Peel is perfectly safe. The law which repealed the Corn Laws stands now on a much firmer foundation than when it was first passed. We are stronger than ever in reason; and we are stronger than ever in numbers. We are stronger than ever in reason, because what was only prophecy is now history. No person can now question the salutary effect which the repeal of the Corn Laws has had on our trade and industry. We are stronger than ever in numbers. You, I am sure, recollect the time when a formidable opposition to the repeal of the Corn Laws was made by a class which was most deeply interested in that repeal; I mean the labouring classes. You recollect that, in many large towns, ten years ago, the friends of Free Trade could not venture to call meetings for the purpose of petitioning against the Corn Laws, for fear of being interrupted by a crowd of working people, who had been taught by a certain class of demagogues to say that the question was one in which working people had no interest, that it was purely a capitalist's question, that, if the poor man got a large loaf instead of a small one, he would get from the capitalist only a sixpence instead of a shilling. I never had the slightest faith in those doctrines. Experience even then seemed to me completely to confute them. I compared place with place; and I found that, though bread was dearer in England than in Ohio, wages were higher in Ohio than in England. I compared time with time; and I saw that those times when bread was cheapest in England, within my own memory, were also the times in which the condition of the labouring classes was the happiest. But now the experiment has been tried in a manner which admits of no dispute. I should be glad to know, if there were now an attempt made to impose a tax on corn, what demagogue would be able to bring a crowd of working men to hold up their hands in favour of such a tax. Thus strong, Gentlemen, in reason, and thus strong in numbers, we need, I believe, apprehend no direct attack on the principles of Free Trade. It will, however, be one of the first duties of your representatives to be vigilant that no indirect attack shall be made on these principles; and to take care that in our financial arrangements no undue favour shall be shown to any class.

With regard to the other question which I have mentioned, the question of Parliamentary Reform, I think that the time is at hand when that question will require the gravest consideration, when it will be necessary to reconsider the Reform Act of 1832, and to amend it temperately and cautiously, but in a large and liberal spirit. I confess that, in my opinion, this revision cannot be made with advantage, except by the Ministers of the Crown. I greatly doubt whether it will be found possible to carry through any plan of improvement if we have not the Government heartily with us; and I must say that from the present Administration I can, as to that matter, expect nothing good. What precisely I am to expect from them I do not know, whether the most obstinate opposition to every change, or the most insanely violent change. If I look to their conduct, I find the gravest reasons for apprehending that they may at one time resist the most just demands, and at another time, from the merest caprice, propose the wildest innovations. And I will tell you why I entertain this opinion. I am sorry that, in doing so, I must mention the name of a gentleman for whom, personally, I have the highest respect; I mean Mr Walpole, the Secretary of State for the Home Department. My own acquaintance with him is slight; but I know him well by character; and I believe him to be an honourable, an excellent, an able man. No man is more esteemed in private life: but of his public conduct I must claim the right to speak with freedom; and I do so with the less scruple because he has himself set me an example of that freedom, and because I am really now standing on the defensive. Mr Walpole lately made a speech to the electors of Midhurst; and in that speech he spoke personally of Lord John Russell as one honourable man should speak of another, and as, I am sure, I wish always to speak of Mr Walpole. But in Lord John's public conduct Mr Walpole found many faults. Chief among those faults was this, that his lordship had re-opened the question of reform. Mr Walpole declared himself to be opposed on principle to organic change. He justly said that if, unfortunately, organic change should be necessary, whatever was done ought to be done with much deliberation and with caution almost timorous; and he charged Lord John with having neglected these plain rules of prudence. I was perfectly thunderstruck when I read the speech: for I could not but recollect that the most violent and democratic change that ever was proposed within the memory of the oldest man had been proposed but a few weeks before by this same Mr Walpole, as the organ of the present Government. Do you remember the history of the Militia Bill? In general, when a great change in our institutions is to be proposed from the Treasury Bench, the Minister announces his intention some weeks before. There is a great attendance: there is the most painful anxiety to know what he is going to recommend. I well remember,—for I was present,—with what breathless suspense six hundred persons waited, on the first of March, 1831, to hear Lord John Russell explain the principles of his Reform Bill. But what was his Reform Bill to the Reform Bill of the Derby Administration? At the end of a night, in the coolest way possible, without the smallest notice, Mr Walpole proposed to add to the tail of the Militia Bill a clause to the effect, that every man who had served in the militia for two years should have a vote for the county. What is the number of those voters who were to be entitled to vote in this way for counties? The militia of England is to consist of eighty thousand men; and the term of service is to be five years. In ten years the number will be one hundred and sixty thousand; in twenty years, three hundred and twenty thousand; and in twenty-five years, four hundred thousand. Some of these new electors will, of course, die off in twenty-five years, though the lives are picked lives, remarkably good lives. What the mortality is likely to be I do not accurately know; but any actuary will easily calculate it for you. I should say, in round numbers, that you will have, when the system has been in operation for a generation, an addition of about three hundred thousand to the county constituent bodies; that is to say, six thousand voters on the average will be added to every county in England and Wales. That is surely an immense addition. And what is the qualification? Why, the first qualification is youth. These electors are not to be above a certain age; but the nearer you can get them to eighteen the better. The second qualification is poverty. The elector is to be a person to whom a shilling a-day is an object. The third qualification is ignorance; for I venture to say that, if you take the trouble to observe the appearance of those young fellows who follow the recruiting sergeant in the streets, you will at once say that, among our labouring classes, they are not the most educated, they are not the most intelligent. That they are brave, stout lads, I fully believe. Lord Hardinge tells me that he never saw a finer set of young men; and I have not the slightest doubt that, if necessary, after a few weeks' training, they will be found standing up for our firesides against the best disciplined soldiers that the Continent can produce. But these are not the qualifications which fit men to choose legislators. A young man who goes from the ploughtail into the army is generally rather thoughtless and disposed to idleness. Oh! but there is another qualification which I had forgotten: the voter must be five feet two. There is a qualification for you! Only think of measuring a man for the franchise! And this is the work of a Conservative Government, this plan which would swamp all the counties in England with electors who possess the Derby-Walpole qualifications; that is to say, youth, poverty, ignorance, a roving disposition, and five feet two. Why, what right have people who have proposed such a change as this to talk about—I do not say Lord John Russell's imprudence—but the imprudence of Ernest Jones or of any other Chartist? The Chartists, to do them justice, would give the franchise to wealth as well as to poverty, to knowledge as well as to ignorance, to mature age as well as to youth. But to make a qualification compounded of disqualifications is a feat of which the whole glory belongs to our Conservative rulers. This astounding proposition was made, I believe, in a very thin House: but the next day the House was full enough, everybody having come down to know what was going to happen. One asked, why not this? and another, why not that? Are all the regular troops to have the franchise? all the policemen? all the sailors? for, if you give the franchise to ploughboys of twenty-one, what class of honest Englishmen and Scotchmen can you with decency exclude? But up gets the Home Secretary, and informs the House that the plan had not been sufficiently considered, that some of his colleagues were not satisfied, and that he would not press his proposition. Now, if it had happened to me to propose such a reform at one sitting of the House, and at the next sitting to withdraw it, because it had not been well considered, I do think that, to the end of my life, I never should have talked about the exceeding imprudence of reopening the question of reform; I should never have ventured to read any other man a lecture about the caution with which all plans of organic change ought to be framed. I repeat that, if I am to judge from the language of the present Ministers, taken in connection with this solitary instance of their legislative skill in the way of reform, I am utterly at a loss what to expect. On the whole, what I do expect is that they will offer a pertinacious, vehement, provoking opposition to safe and reasonable change, and that then, in some moment of fear or caprice, they will bring in, and fling on the table, in a fit of desperation or levity, some plan which will loosen the very foundations of society.

For my own part, I think that the question of Parliamentary Reform is one which must soon be taken up; but it ought to be taken up by the Government; and I hope, before long, to see in office a Ministry which will take it up in earnest. I dare say that you will not suspect me of saying so from any interested feeling. In no case whatever shall I again be a member of any Ministry. During what may remain of my public life, I shall be the servant of none but you. I have nothing to ask of any government, except that protection which every government owes to a faithful and loyal subject of the Queen. But I do hope to see in office before long a Ministry which will treat this great question as it should be treated. It will be the duty of that Ministry to revise the distribution of power. It will be the duty of that Ministry to consider whether small constituent bodies, notoriously corrupt, and proved to be corrupt, such, for example, as Harwich, ought to retain the power of sending members to Parliament. It will be the duty of such a Ministry to consider whether small constituent bodies, even less notoriously corrupt, ought to have, in the counsels of the empire, a share as great as that of the West Riding of York, and twice as great as that of the county of Perth. It will be the duty of such a Ministry to consider whether it may not be possible, without the smallest danger to peace, law, and order, to extend the elective franchise to classes of the community which do not now possess it. As to universal suffrage, on that subject you already know my opinions; and I now come before you with those opinions strengthened by everything which, since I last professed them, has passed in Europe. We now know, by the clearest of all proofs, that universal suffrage, even united with secret voting, is no security against the establishment of arbitrary power. But, Gentlemen, I do look forward, and at no very remote period, to an extension of the franchise, such as I once thought unsafe. I believe that such an extension will, by the course of events, be brought about in the very best and happiest way. Perhaps I may be sanguine: but I think that good times are coming for the labouring classes of this country. I do not entertain that hope because I expect that Fourierism, or Saint Simonianism, or Socialism, or any of those other "isms" for which the plain English word is "robbery," will prevail. I know that such schemes only aggravate the misery which they pretend to relieve. I know that it is possible, by legislation, to make the rich poor, but that it is utterly impossible to make the poor rich. But I believe that the progress of experimental science, the free intercourse of nation with nation, the unrestricted influx of commodities from countries where they are cheap, and the unrestricted efflux of labour towards countries where it is dear, will soon produce, nay, I believe that they are beginning to produce, a great and most blessed social revolution. I need not tell you, Gentlemen, that in those colonies which have been planted by our race,—and, when I speak of our colonies I speak as well of those which have separated from us as of those which still remain united to us,—I need not tell you that in our colonies the condition of the labouring man has long been far more prosperous than in any part of the Old World. And why is this? Some people tell you that the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and New England are better off than the inhabitants of the Old World, because the United States have a republican form of government. But we know that the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and New England were more prosperous than the inhabitants of the Old World when Pennsylvania and New England were as loyal as any part of the dominions of George the First, George the Second, and George the Third; and we know that in Van Diemen's Land, in New Zealand, in Australasia, in New Brunswick, in Canada, the subjects of Her Majesty are as prosperous as they could be under the government of a President. The real cause is that, in these new countries, where there is a boundless extent of fertile land, nothing is easier than for the labourer to pass from the place which is overstocked with labour to the place which is understocked; and that thus both he who moves and he who stays always have enough. This it is which keeps up the prosperity of the Atlantic States of the Union. They pour their population back to the Ohio, across the Ohio to the Mississippi, and beyond the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. Everywhere the desert is receding before the advancing flood of human life and civilisation; and, in the meantime, those who are left behind enjoy abundance, and never endure such privations as in old countries too often befall the labouring classes. And why has not the condition of our labourers been equally fortunate? Simply, as I believe, on account of the great distance which separates our country from the new and unoccupied part of the world, and on account of the expense of traversing that distance. Science, however, has abridged, and is abridging, that distance: science has diminished, and is diminishing, that expense. Already New Zealand is, for all practical purposes, nearer to us than New England was to the Puritans who fled thither from the tyranny of Laud. Already the ports of North America, Halifax, Boston, and New York, are nearer to us than, within the memory of persons now living, the Island of Skye and the county of Donegal were to London. Already emigration is beginning to produce the same effect here which it has produced on the Atlantic States of the Union. And do not imagine that our countryman who goes abroad is altogether lost to us. Even if he goes from under the dominion of the British Queen and the protection of the British flag he will still, under the benignant system of free trade, continue to be bound to us by close ties. If he ceases to be a neighbour, he is still a benefactor and a customer. Go where he may, if you will but maintain that system inviolate, it is for us that he is turning the forests into cornfields on the banks of the Mississippi; it is for us that he is tending his sheep and preparing his fleeces in the heart of Australasia; and in the meantime it is from us that he receives those commodities which are produced with most advantage in old societies, where great masses of capital have been accumulated. His candlesticks and his pots and his pans come from Birmingham; his knives from Sheffield; the light cotton jacket which he wears in summer from Manchester; the good cloth coat which he wears in winter from Leeds; and in return he sends us back, from what was lately a wilderness, the good flour out of which is made the large loaf which the British labourer divides among his children. I believe that it is in these changes that we shall see the best solution of the question of the franchise. We shall make our institutions more democratic than they are, not by lowering the franchise to the level of the great mass of the community, but by raising, in a time which will be very short when compared with the existence of a nation, the great mass up to the level of the franchise.

I feel that I must stop. I had meant to advert to some other subjects. I had meant to say something about the ballot, to which, as you know, I have always been favourable; something about triennial parliaments, to which, as you know, I have always been honestly opposed; something about your university tests; something about the cry for religious equality which has lately been raised in Ireland; but I feel that I cannot well proceed. I have only strength to thank you again, from the very bottom of my heart, for the great honour which you have done me in choosing me, without solicitation, to represent you in Parliament. I am proud of our connection; and I shall try to act in such a manner that you may not be ashamed of it.

*****



EXCLUSION OF JUDGES FROM THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. (JUNE 1, 1853) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 1ST OF JUNE 1853.

On the first of June 1853, Lord Hotham, Member for Kent, moved the third reading of a bill of which the chief object was to make the Master of the Rolls incapable of sitting in the House of Commons. Mr Henry Drummond, Member for Surrey, moved that the bill should be read a third time that day six months. In support of Mr Drummond's amendment the following Speech was made.

The amendment was carried by 224 votes to 123.

I cannot, Sir, suffer the House to proceed to a division without expressing the very strong opinion which I have formed on this subject. I shall give my vote, with all my heart and soul, for the amendment moved by my honourable friend the Member for Surrey. I never gave a vote in my life with a more entire confidence that I was in the right; and I cannot but think it discreditable to us that a bill for which there is so little to be said, and against which there is so much to be said, should have been permitted to pass through so many stages without a division.

On what grounds, Sir, does the noble lord, the Member for Kent, ask us to make this change in the law? The only ground, surely, on which a Conservative legislator ought ever to propose a change in the law is this, that the law, as it stands, has produced some evil. Is it then pretended that the law, as it stands, has produced any evil? The noble lord himself tells you that it has produced no evil whatever. Nor can it be said that the experiment has not been fairly tried. This House and the office of Master of the Rolls began to exist, probably in the same generation, certainly in the same century. During six hundred years this House has been open to Masters of the Rolls. Many Masters of the Rolls have sate here, and have taken part, with great ability and authority, in our deliberations. To go no further back than the accession of the House of Hanover, Jekyll was a member of this House, and Strange, and Kenyon, and Pepper Arden, and Sir William Grant, and Sir John Copley, and Sir Charles Pepys, and finally Sir John Romilly. It is not even pretended that any one of these eminent persons was ever, on any single occasion, found to be the worse member of this House for being Master of the Rolls, or the worse Master of the Rolls for being a member of this House. And if so, is it, I ask, the part of a wise statesman, is it, I ask still more emphatically, the part of a Conservative statesman, to alter a system which has lasted six centuries, and which has never once, during all those centuries, produced any but good effects, merely because it is not in harmony with an abstract principle?

And what is the abstract principle for the sake of which we are asked to innovate in reckless defiance of all the teaching of experience? It is this; that political functions ought to be kept distinct from judicial functions. So sacred, it seems, is this principle, that the union of the political and judicial characters ought not to be suffered to continue even in a case in which that union has lasted through many ages without producing the smallest practical inconvenience. "Nothing is so hateful," I quote the words of the noble lord who brought in this bill, "nothing is so hateful as a political judge."

Now, Sir, if I assent to the principle laid down by the noble lord, I must pronounce his bill the most imbecile, the most pitiful, attempt at reform that ever was made. The noble lord is a homoeopathist in state medicine. His remedies are administered in infinitesimal doses. If he will, for a moment, consider how our tribunals are constituted, and how our parliament is constituted, he will perceive that the judicial and political character are, through all grades, everywhere combined, everywhere interwoven, and that therefore the evil which he proposes to remove vanishes, as the mathematicians say, when compared with the immense mass of evil which he leaves behind.

It has been asked, and very sensibly asked, why, if you exclude the Master of the Rolls from the House, you should not also exclude the Recorder of the City of London. I should be very sorry to see the Recorder of the City of London excluded. But I must say that the reasons for excluding him are ten times as strong as the reasons for excluding the Master of the Rolls. For it is well-known that political cases of the highest importance have been tried by Recorders of the City of London. But why not exclude all Recorders, and all Chairmen of Quarter Sessions? I venture to say that there are far stronger reasons for excluding a Chairman of Quarter Sessions than for excluding a Master of the Rolls. I long ago attended, during two or three years, the Quarter Sessions of a great county. There I constantly saw in the chair an eminent member of this House. An excellent criminal judge he was. Had he been a veteran lawyer, he could hardly have tried causes more satisfactorily or more expeditiously. But he was a keen politician: he had made a motion which had turned out a Government; and when he died he was a Cabinet Minister. Yet this gentleman, the head of the Blue interest, as it was called, in his county, might have had to try men of the Orange party for rioting at a contested election. He voted for the corn laws; and he might have had to try men for breaches of the peace which had originated in the discontent caused by the corn laws. He was, as I well remember, hooted, and, I rather think, pelted too, by the mob of London for his conduct towards Queen Caroline; and, when he went down to his county, he might have had to sit in judgment on people for breaking windows which had not been illuminated in honour of Her Majesty's victory. This is not a solitary instance. There are, I dare say, in this House, fifty Chairmen of Quarter Sessions. And this is an union of judicial and political functions against which there is really much to be said. For it is important, not only that the administration of justice should be pure, but that it should be unsuspected. Now I am willing to believe that the administration of justice by the unpaid magistrates in political cases is pure: but unsuspected it certainly is not. It is notorious that, in times of political excitement, the cry of the whole democratic press always is that a poor man, who has been driven by distress to outrage, has far harder measure at the Quarter Sessions than at the Assizes. So loud was this cry in 1819 that Mr Canning, in one of his most eloquent speeches, pronounced it the most alarming of all the signs of the times. See then how extravagantly, how ludicrously inconsistent your legislation is. You lay down the principle that the union of political functions and judicial functions is a hateful abuse. That abuse you determine to remove. You accordingly leave in this House a crowd of judges who, in troubled times, have to try persons charged with political offences; of judges who have often been accused, truly or falsely, of carrying to the judgment seat their political sympathies and antipathies; and you shut out of the house a single judge, whose duties are of such a nature that it has never once, since the time of Edward the First, been even suspected that he or any of his predecessors has, in the administration of justice, favoured a political ally, or wronged a political opponent.

But even if I were to admit, what I altogether deny, that there is something in the functions of the Master of the Rolls which makes it peculiarly desirable that he should not take any part in politics, I should still vote against this bill, as most inconsistent and inefficient. If you think that he ought to be excluded from political assemblies, why do not you exclude him? You do no such thing. You exclude him from the House of Commons, but you leave the House of Lords open to him. Is not the House of Lords a political assembly? And is it not certain that, during several generations, judges have generally had a great ascendency in the House of Lords? A hundred years ago a great judge, Lord Hardwicke, possessed an immense influence there. He bequeathed his power to another great judge, Lord Mansfield. When age had impaired the vigour of Lord Mansfield, the authority which he had, during many years, enjoyed, passed to a third judge, Lord Thurlow. Everybody knows what a dominion that eminent judge, Lord Eldon, exercised over the peers, what a share he took in making and unmaking ministries, with what idolatrous veneration he was regarded by one great party in the State, with what dread and aversion he was regarded by the other. When the long reign of Lord Eldon had terminated, other judges, Whig and Tory, appeared at the head of contending factions. Some of us can well remember the first ten days of October, 1831. Who, indeed, that lived through those days can ever forget them? It was the most exciting, the most alarming political conjuncture of my time. On the morning of the eighth of October, the Reform Bill, after a discussion which had lasted through many nights, was rejected by the Lords. God forbid that I should again see such a crisis! I can never hope again to hear such a debate. It was indeed a splendid display of various talents and acquirements. There are, I dare say, some here who, like myself, watched through the last night of that conflict till the late autumnal dawn, sometimes walking up and down the long gallery, sometimes squeezing ourselves in behind the throne, or below the bar, to catch the eloquence of the great orators who, on that great occasion, surpassed themselves. There I saw, in the foremost ranks, confronting each other, two judges, on one side Lord Brougham, Chancellor of the realm, on the other Lord Lyndhurst, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. How eagerly we hung on their words! How eagerly those words were read before noon by hundreds of thousands in the capital, and within forty-eight hours, by millions in every part of the kingdom! With what a burst of popular fury the decision of the House was received by the nation! The ruins of Nottingham Castle, the ruins of whole streets and squares at Bristol, proved but too well to what a point the public feeling had been wound up. If it be true that nothing is so hateful to the noble lord, the Member for Kent, as a judge who takes part in political contentions, why does he not bring in a bill to prevent judges from entering those lists in which Lord Brougham and Lord Lyndhurst then encountered each other? But no: the noble lord is perfectly willing to leave those lists open to the Master of the Rolls. The noble lord's objection is not to the union of the judicial character and the political character. He is quite willing that anywhere but here judges should be politicians. The Master of the Rolls may be the soul of a great party, the head of a great party, the favourite tribune of a stormy democracy, the chief spokesman of a haughty aristocracy. He may do all that declamation and sophistry can do to inflame the passions or mislead the judgment of a senate. But it must not be in this room. He must go a hundred and fifty yards hence. He must sit on a red bench, and not on a green one. He must say, "My Lords," and not "Mr Speaker." He must say, "Content," and not "Aye." And then he may, without at all shocking the noble lord, be the most stirring politician in the kingdom.

But I am understating my case. I am greatly understating it. For, Sir, this union of the judicial character and the political character, in Members of the other House of Parliament, is not a merely accidental union. Not only may judges be made peers; but all the peers are necessarily judges. Surely when the noble lord told us that the union of political functions and of judicial functions was the most hateful of all things, he must have forgotten that, by the fundamental laws of the realm, a political assembly is the supreme court of appeal, the court which finally confirms or annuls the judgments of the courts, both of common law and of equity, at Westminster, of the courts of Scotland, of the courts of Ireland, of this very Master of the Rolls about whom we are debating. Surely, if the noble lord's principle be a sound one, it is not with the Master of the Rolls but with the House of Peers that we ought to begin. For, beyond all dispute, it is more important that the court above should be constituted on sound principles than that the court below should be so constituted. If the Master of the Rolls goes wrong, the House of Peers may correct his errors. But who is to correct the errors of the House of Peers? All these considerations the noble lord overlooks. He is quite willing that the peers shall sit in the morning as judges, shall determine questions affecting the property, the liberty, the character of the Queen's subjects, shall determine those questions in the last resort, shall overrule the decisions of all the other tribunals in the country; and that then, in the afternoon, these same noble persons shall meet as politicians, and shall debate, sometimes rather sharply, sometimes in a style which we dare not imitate for fear that you, Sir, should call us to order, about the Canadian Clergy Reserves, the Irish National Schools, the Disabilities of the Jews, the Government of India. I do not blame the noble lord for not attempting to alter this state of things. We cannot alter it, I know, without taking up the foundations of our constitution. But is it not absurd, while we live under such a constitution, while, throughout our whole system from top to bottom, political functions and judicial functions are combined, to single out, not on any special ground, but merely at random, one judge from a crowd of judges, and to exclude him, not from all political assemblies, but merely from one political assembly? Was there ever such a mummery as the carrying of this bill to the other House will be, if, unfortunately, it should be carried thither. The noble lord, himself, I have no doubt, a magistrate, himself at once a judge and a politician, accompanied by several gentlemen who are at once judges and politicians, will go to the bar of the Lords, who are all at once judges and politicians, will deliver the bill into the hands of the Chancellor, who is at once the chief judge of the realm and a Cabinet Minister, and will return hither proud of having purified the administration of justice from the taint of politics.

No, Sir, no; for the purpose of purifying the administration of justice this bill is utterly impotent. It will be effectual for one purpose, and for one purpose only, for the purpose of weakening and degrading the House of Commons. This is not the first time that an attempt has been made, under specious pretexts, to lower the character and impair the efficiency of the assembly which represents the great body of the nation. More than a hundred and fifty years ago there was a general cry that the number of placemen in Parliament was too great. No doubt, Sir, the number was too great: the evil required a remedy: but some rash and short-sighted though probably well meaning men, proposed a remedy which would have produced far more evil than it would have removed. They inserted in the Act of Settlement a clause providing that no person who held any office under the Crown should sit in this House. The clause was not to take effect till the House of Hanover should come to the throne; and, happily for the country, before the House of Hanover came to the throne, the clause was repealed. Had it not been repealed, the Act of Settlement would have been, not a blessing, but a curse to the country. There was no want, indeed, of plausible and popular commonplaces in favour of this clause. No man, it was said, can serve two masters. A courtier cannot be a good guardian of public liberty. A man who derives his subsistence from the taxes cannot be trusted to check the public expenditure. You will never have purity, you will never have economy, till the stewards of the nation are independent of the Crown, and dependent only on their constituents. Yes; all this sounded well: but what man of sense now doubts that the effect of a law excluding all official men from this House would have been to depress that branch of the legislature which springs from the people, and to increase the power and consideration of the hereditary aristocracy? The whole administration would have been in the hands of peers. The chief object of every eminent Commoner would have been to obtain a peerage. As soon as any man had gained such distinction here by his eloquence and knowledge that he was selected to fill the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of State, or First Lord of the Admiralty, he would instantly have turned his back on what would then indeed have been emphatically the Lower House, and would have gone to that chamber in which alone it would have been possible for him fully to display his abilities and fully to gratify his ambition. Walpole and Pulteney, the first Pitt and the second Pitt, Fox, Windham, Canning, Peel, all the men whose memory is inseparably associated with this House, all the men of whose names we think with pride as we pass through St Stephen's Hall, the place of their contentions and their triumphs, would, in the vigour and prime of life, have become Barons and Viscounts. The great conflict of parties would have been transferred from the Commons to the Lords. It would have been impossible for an assembly, in which not a single statesman of great fame, authority, and experience in important affairs would have been found, to hold its own against an assembly in which all our eminent politicians and orators would have been collected. All England, all Europe, would have been reading with breathless interest the debates of the peers, and looking with anxiety for the divisions of the peers, while we, instead of discussing high questions of state, and giving a general direction to the whole domestic and foreign policy of the realm, should have been settling the details of canal bills and turnpike bills.

The noble lord, the Member for Kent does not, it is true, propose so extensive and important a change as that which the authors of the Act of Settlement wished to make. But the tendency of this bill is, beyond all doubt, to make this House less capable than it once was, and less capable than the other House now is, of discharging some of the most important duties of a legislative assembly.

Of the duties of a legislative assembly, the noble lord, and some of those gentlemen who support his bill, seem to me to have formed a very imperfect notion. They argue as if the only business of the House of Commons was to turn one set of men out of place, and to bring another set into place; as if a judge could find no employment here but factious wrangling. Sir, it is not so. There are extensive and peaceful provinces of parliamentary business far removed from the fields of battle where hostile parties encounter each other. A great jurist, seated among us, might, without taking any prominent part in the strife between the Ministry and the Opposition, render to his country most valuable service, and earn for himself an imperishable name. Nor was there ever a time when the assistance of such a jurist was more needed, or was more likely to be justly appreciated, than at present. No observant man can fail to perceive that there is in the public mind a general, a growing, an earnest, and at the same time, I must say, a most sober and reasonable desire for extensive law reform. I hope and believe that, for some time to come, no year will pass without progress in law reform; and I hold that of all law reformers the best is a learned, upright, and large-minded judge. At such a time it is that we are called upon to shut the door of this House against the last great judicial functionary to whom the unwise legislation of former parliaments has left it open. In the meantime the other House is open to him. It is open to all the other judges who are not suffered to sit here. It is open to the Judge of the Admiralty Court, whom the noble lord, twelve or thirteen years ago, prevailed on us, in an unlucky hour, to exclude. In the other House is the Lord Chancellor, and several retired Chancellors, a Lord Chief Justice, in several retired Chief Justices. The Queen may place there to-morrow the Chief Baron, the two Lords Justices, the three Vice Chancellors, the very Master of the Rolls about whom we are debating: and we, as if we were not already too weak for the discharge of our functions, are trying to weaken ourselves still more. I harbour no unfriendly feeling towards the Lords. I anticipate no conflict with them. But it is not fit that we should be unable to bear an equal part with them in the great work of improving and digesting the law. It is not fit that we should be under the necessity of placing implicit confidence in their superior wisdom, and of registering without amendment, any bill which they may send us. To that humiliating situation we are, I grieve to say, fast approaching. I was much struck by a circumstance which occurred a few days ago. I heard the honourable Member for Montrose, who, by the by, is one of the supporters of this bill, urge the House to pass the Combination Bill, for a most extraordinary reason. "We really," he said, "cannot tell how the law about combinations of workmen at present stands; and, not knowing how the law at present stands, we are quite incompetent to decide whether it ought to be altered. Let us send the bill up to the Lords. They understand these things. We do not. There are Chancellors, and ex-Chancellors, and Judges among them. No doubt they will do what is proper; and I shall acquiesce in their decision." Why, Sir, did ever any legislative assembly abdicate its functions in so humiliating a manner? Is it not strange that a gentleman, distinguished by his love of popular institutions, and by the jealousy with which he regards the aristocracy, should gravely propose that, on a subject which interests and excites hundreds of thousands of our constituents, we should declare ourselves incompetent to form an opinion, and beg the Lords to tell us what we ought to do? And is it not stranger still that, while he admits the incompetence of the House to discharge some of its most important functions, and while he attributes that incompetence to the want of judicial assistance, he should yet wish to shut out of the House the only high judicial functionary who is now permitted to come into it?

But, says the honourable Member for Montrose, the Master of the Rolls has duties to perform which, if properly performed, will leave him no leisure for attendance in this House: it is important that there should be a division of labour: no man can do two things well; and, if we suffer a judge to be a member of Parliament, we shall have both a bad member of Parliament and a bad judge.

Now, Sir, if this argument proves anything, it proves that the Master of the Rolls, and indeed all the other judges, ought to be excluded from the House of Lords as well as from the House of Commons. But I deny that the argument is of any weight. The division of labour has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. In operations merely mechanical you can hardly carry the subdivision too far; but you may very easily carry it too far in operations which require the exercise of high intellectual powers. It is quite true, as Adam Smith tells us, that a pin will be best made when one man does nothing but cut the wire, when another does nothing but mould the head, when a third does nothing but sharpen the point. But it is not true that Michael Angelo would have been a greater painter if he had not been a sculptor: it is not true that Newton would have been a greater experimental philosopher if he had not been a geometrician; and it is not true that a man will be a worse lawgiver because he is a great judge. I believe that there is as close a connection between the functions of the judge and the functions of the lawgiver as between anatomy and surgery. Would it not be the height of absurdity to lay down the rule that nobody who dissected the dead should be allowed to operate on the living? The effect of such a division of labour would be that you would have nothing but bungling surgery; and the effect of the division of labour which the honourable Member for Montrose recommends will be that we shall have plenty of bungling legislation. Who can be so well qualified to make laws and to mend laws as a man whose business is to interpret laws and to administer laws? As to this point I have great pleasure in citing an authority to which the honourable Member for Montrose will, I know, be disposed to pay the greatest deference; the authority of Mr Bentham. Of Mr Bentham's moral and political speculations, I entertain, I must own, a very mean opinion: but I hold him in high esteem as a jurist. Among all his writings there is none which I value more than the treatise on Judicial Organization. In that excellent work he discusses the question whether a person who holds a judicial office ought to be permitted to hold with it any other office. Mr Bentham argues strongly and convincingly against pluralities; but he admits that there is one exception to the general rule. A judge, he says, ought to be allowed to sit in the legislature as a representative of the people; for the best school for a legislator is the judicial bench; and the supply of legislative skill is in all societies so scanty that none of it can be spared.

My honourable friend, the Member for Surrey, has completely refuted another argument to which the noble lord, the Member for Kent, appears to attach considerable importance. The noble lord conceives that no person can enter this House without stooping to practice arts which would ill become the gravity of the judicial character. He spoke particularly of what he called the jollifications usual at elections. Undoubtedly the festivities at elections are sometimes disgraced by intemperance, and sometimes by buffoonery; and I wish from the bottom of my heart that intemperance and buffoonery were the worst means to which men, reputed upright and honourable in private life, have resorted in order to obtain seats in the legislature. I should, indeed, be sorry if any Master of the Rolls should court the favour of the populace by playing the mounttebank on the hustings or on tavern tables. Still more sorry should I be if any Master of the Rolls were to disgrace himself and his office by employing the ministry of the Frails and the Flewkers, by sending vile emissaries with false names, false addresses, and bags of sovereigns, to buy the votes of the poor. No doubt a Master of the Rolls ought to be free, not only from guilt, but from suspicion. I have not hitherto mentioned the present Master of the Rolls. I have not mentioned him because, in my opinion, this question ought to be decided by general and not by personal considerations. I cannot, however, refrain from saying, with a confidence which springs from long and intimate acquaintance, that my valued friend, Sir John Romilly, will never again sit in this House unless he can come in by means very different from those by which he was turned out. But, Sir, are we prepared to say that no person can become a representative of the English people except by some sacrifice of integrity, or at least of personal dignity? If it be so, we had indeed better think of setting our House in order. If it be so, the prospects of our country are dark indeed. How can England retain her place among the nations, if the assembly to which all her dearest interests are confided, the assembly which can, by a single vote, transfer the management of her affairs to new hands, and give a new direction to her whole policy, foreign and domestic, financial, commercial, and colonial, is closed against every man who has rigid principles and a fine sense of decorum? But it is not so. Did that great judge, Sir William Scott, lower his character by entering this House as Member for the University of Oxford? Did Sir John Copley lower his character by entering this House as Member for the University of Cambridge? But the universities, you say, are constituent bodies of a very peculiar kind. Be it so. Then, by your own admission, there are a few seats in this House which eminent judges have filled and may fill without any unseemly condescension. But it would be most unjust, and in me, especially, most ungrateful, to compliment the universities at the expense of other constituent bodies. I am one of many members who know by experience that a generosity and a delicacy of sentiment which would do honour to any seat of learning may be found among the ten pound householders of our great cities. And, Sir, as to the counties, need we look further than to your chair? It is of as much importance that you should punctiliously preserve your dignity as that the Master of the Rolls should punctiliously preserve his dignity. If you had, at the last election, done anything inconsistent with the integrity, with the gravity, with the suavity of temper which so eminently qualify you to preside over our deliberations, your public usefulness would have been seriously diminished. But the great county which does itself honour by sending you to the House required from you nothing unbecoming your character, and would have felt itself degraded by your degradation. And what reason is there to doubt that other constituent bodies would act as justly and considerately towards a judge distinguished by uprightness and ability as Hampshire has acted towards you?

One very futile argument only remains to be noticed. It is said that we ought to be consistent; and that, having turned the Judge of the Admiralty out of the House, we ought to send the Master of the Rolls after him. I admit, Sir, that our system is at present very anomalous. But it is better that a system should be anomalous than that it should be uniformly and consistently bad. You have entered on a wrong course. My advice is first that you stop, and secondly that you retrace your steps. The time is not far distant when it will be necessary for us to revise the constitution of this House. On that occasion, it will be part of our duty to reconsider the rule which determines what public functionaries shall be admitted to sit here, and what public functionaries shall be excluded. That rule is, I must say, singularly absurd. It is this, that no person who holds any office created since the twenty-fifth of October, 1705, shall be a member of the House of Commons. Nothing can be more unreasonable or more inconvenient. In 1705, there were two Secretaries of State and two Under Secretaries. Consequently, to this day, only two Secretaries of State and two Under Secretaries can sit among us. Suppose that the Home Secretary and the Colonial Secretary are members of this House, and that the office of Foreign Secretary becomes vacant. In that case, no member of this House, whatever may be his qualifications, his fame in diplomacy, his knowledge of all the politics of the Courts of Europe, can be appointed. Her Majesty must give the Admiralty to the commoner who is, of all her subjects, fittest for the Foreign Office, and the seals of the Foreign Office to some peer who would perhaps be fitter for the Admiralty. Again, the Postmaster General cannot sit in this House. Yet why not? He always comes in and goes out with the Government: he is often a member of the Cabinet; and I believe that he is, of all public functionaries, the Chancellor of the Exchequer alone excepted, the one whom it would be most convenient to have here. I earnestly hope that, before long, this whole subject will be taken into serious consideration. As to the judges, the rule which I should wish to see laid down is very simple. I would admit into this House any judge whom the people might elect, unless there were some special reason against admitting him. There is a special reason against admitting any Irish or Scotch judge. Such a judge cannot attend this House without ceasing to attend his court. There is a special reason against admitting the Judges of the Queen's Bench and of the Common Pleas, and the Barons of the Exchequer. They are summoned to the House of Lords; and they sit there: their assistance is absolutely necessary to enable that House to discharge its functions as the highest court of appeal; and it would manifestly be both inconvenient and derogatory to our dignity that members of our body should be at the beck and call of the peers. I see no special reason for excluding the Master of the Rolls; and I would, therefore, leave our door open to him. I would open it to the Judge of the Admiralty, who has been most unwisely excluded. I would open it to other great judicial officers who are now excluded solely because their offices did not exist in 1705, particularly to the two Lords Justices, and the three Vice Chancellors. In this way, we should, I am convinced, greatly facilitate the important and arduous work of law reform; we would raise the character of this House: and I need not say that with the character of this House must rise or fall the estimation in which representative institutions are held throughout the world. But, whether the extensive changes which I have recommended shall be thought desirable or not, I trust that we shall reject the bill of the noble lord. I address myself to the Conservative members on your left hand; and I ask them whether they are prepared to alter, on grounds purely theoretical, a system which has lasted during twenty generations without producing the smallest practical evil. I turn to the Liberal members on this side; and I ask them whether they are prepared to lower the reputation and to impair the efficiency of that branch of the legislature which springs from the people. For myself, Sir, I hope that I am at once a Liberal and a Conservative politician; and, in both characters, I shall give a clear and conscientious vote in favour of the amendment moved by my honourable friend.

*****



INDEX.

Absalom and Achitophel of Dryden, character of it.

Absolute government, theory of.

Absolute rulers.

Academy, the French, its services to literature.

Addington, Henry, formation of his administration. His position as Prime Minister. Resigns. Raised to the peerage.

Aeschines, compared by Mr Mitford to Demosthenes.

Aeschylus, his works, how regarded by Quintillian.

Agesilaus, depressed by the constitution of Lycurgus.

Ajax, the prayer of, in the Iliad.

Aldrich, Dean, his mode of instructing the youths of his college. Employs Charles Boyle to edit the letters of Phalaris.

Alfieri, Vittorio, character of his works. His great fault in his compositions.

Anatomy Bill, Speech on.

Antinomian barn preacher, story of the.

Approbation, love of.

Aristocratical form of government. See Oligarchy.

Aristotle, his unrivalled excellence in analysis and combination. Value of his general propositions. His enlightened and profound criticism.

Arnault, A.V., Translation from.

Arras, cruelties of the Jacobins at.

Arrian, his character as a historian.

Arts, the fine, laws on which the progress and decline of depend.

Athenian Revels, scenes from.

Athens; disreputable character of Peiraeus. Police officers of the city. Favourite epithet of the city. The Athenian orators. Excellence to which eloquence attained at. Dr Johnson's contemptuous derision of the civilisation of the people of. Their books and book education. An Athenian day. Defects of the Athenians' conversational education. The law of ostracism at Athens. Happiness of the Athenians in their term of government. Their naval superiority. Ferocity of the Athenians in war. And of their dependencies in seditions. Cause of the violence of faction in that age. Influence of Athenian genius on the human intellect and on private happiness. The gifts of Athens to man. Character of the great dramas of Athens. Change in the temper of the Athenians in the time of Aristophanes.

Atterbury, Francis, his birth and early life. Defends Martin Luther against the aspersions of Obadiah Walker. Enters the church and becomes one of the royal chaplains. Assists Charles Boyle in preparing an edition of the letters of Phalaris. His answer to Bentley's dissertation on the letters of Phalaris. Bentley's reply. Atterbury's defence of the clergy against the prelates. Created a D.D. and promoted to the Deanery of Carlisle. His pamphlets against the Whigs. Appointed to the Deanery of Christ Church. Removed to the Bishopric of Rochester. His opposition to the Government of George I. His private life. His taste in literature and literary friends. Thrown into prison for treason. Deprived of his dignities and banished for life. Calls Pope as a witness to his innocence. Goes to Paris, and becomes Prime Minister of King James. Retires from the court of the ex-King. Death of his daughter. Induced by the Pretender to return to Paris. His defence of the charge of having garbled Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. His death.

August, lines written in.

Bacon, Lord, his description of the logomachies of the schoolmen. And of the Utilitarian philosophy. His mode of tracking the principle of heat.

Barbaroux, the Girondist, his execution.

Barere, Bertrand, Memoires de, of Carnot and David, review of the. Barere's true character. His lies. His talents as an author. Sketch of his life. Votes against the King. His federal views and ultra Girondism. His apparent zeal for the cause of order and humanity. His motion for punishing the Jacobins. Defeat of the Girondists. Retains his seat at the Board of the Triumphant Mountain. His infamous motion against the chiefs of the Girondists. Moves that the Queen be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Regales Robespierre and other Jacobins at a tavern on the day of the death of the Queen. Formation of his peculiar style of oratory. His Carmagnoles. Effect produced by his discourses. Seconds Robespierre's atrocious motion in the Convention. Becomes one of the six members of the Committee of Public Safety. The first to proclaim terror as the order of the day. Recommends Fouquier Tinville to the Revolutionary Committee of Paris. His proposal to destroy Lyons and Toulon. His opposition to the personal defence of Danton. His support of the wretch Lebon. His war against learning, art, and history. His sensual excesses. Becomes a really cruel man. His morning audiences and mode of treating petitions. His orders against certain head-dresses. Nicknames given to him. Obtains a decree that no quarter should be given to any English or Hanoverian soldier. M. Carnot's defence of this barbarity. Barere's support of Robespierre's fiendish decree. His panegyric on Robespierre. His motion that Robespierre and his accomplices should be put to death. Destruction of the power of the Jacobins. Report on his conduct voted by the Convention. Condemned to be removed to a distant place of confinement. His perilous journey. Imprisoned at Oleron. Removed to Saintes. Escapes to Bordeaux. Chosen a member of the Council of Five Hundred, which refuses to admit him. His libel on England. The Liberty of the Seas. His flight to St Ouen. Sends a copy of his work to the First Consul. Allowed by Bonaparte to remain in Paris. Refuses; becomes a writer and a spy to Bonaparte. Sends his friend Demerville to the guillotine. Spies set to watch the spy. Ordered to quit Paris. Employed in the lowest political drudgery. His "Memorial Antibritannique" and pamphlets. His fulsome adulation of the Emperor. Causes of his failure as a journalist. Treated with contempt by Napoleon. His treachery to his Imperial master. Becomes a royalist on the return of the Bourbons. Compelled to leave France. Returns in July 1830. Joins the extreme left. His last years and death. Summary of his character. His hatred of England. His MS. works on divinity.

Barre, Colonel, joins the Whig opposition. Appointed by Pitt Clerk of the Pells.

Bearn, the constitution of.

Beatrice, Dante's love of.

Beauclerc, Topham, a member of the Literary Club.

Bentham, Mr, his defence of Mr Mill. His merits and shortcomings. Examination of his views. His account of the manner in which he arrived at the "greatest happiness principle." Testimony to his merits.

Bentinck, Lord William, inscription on the statue of, at Calcutta.

Bentley, Richard, his dissertation on the letters of Phalaris. His answer to the attack of Atterbury.

Bible, the English translation of the, regarded as a specimen of the beauty and power of the English language.

Billaud, M., becomes a member of the Committee of Public Safety. Opposes Robespierre. Himself brought to trial. Condemned to be removed to a distant place of confinement. Transported to Guiana. His subsequent life.

Bonaparte, Napoleon, his detestation of the cruel decree of the Convention respecting English prisoners. His return from Egypt, and assumption of absolute power as First Consul. His policy at this period. Allows Barere to reside in Pairs. Employs Barere as a writer and spy. Establishes the Imperial government. His opinion of Barere's journalism. His defeat and abdication.

Boswell, James, becomes a member of The Club. His character. His life of Johnson.

Bourbon, Duke, character of the government of.

Bow Street, whiggery of.

Boyd, his translation of the Divine Comedy of Dante.

Boyle, Charles, his college edition of the letters of Phalaris. The answer to Bentley attributed to him.

Boyse, the poet, his friendship with Samuel Johnson.

Brasidas, great only when he ceased to be a Lacedaemonian.

Brissot, the Girondist leader. His trial.

Brissotines, the. See Girondists.

Buccaneer, the Last.

Bunyan, John, age in which he produced his Pilgrim's Progress. His birth and early life. His notions of good and evil. Enlists in the parliamentary army. Returns home and marries. His fantasies and internal sufferings. Thrown into gaol. His prison life. His intimate knowledge of the Bible. His early writings. His abhorrence of the Quakers. His controversies. His answer to Edward Fowler. His dispute with some of his own sect. His liberation from prison. His Pilgrim's Progress. His Holy War. Difficulties of. His death and burial-place. Fame of his Pilgrim's Progress.

Burgundy, Duke of, his theory of good government.

Burke, Edmund, his character of the first French republic. And of the French National Assembly. His vindication of himself from the charge of inconsistency. His part in The Club. His position in the Whig opposition.

Burns, Robert, age in which he produced his works.

Butler, Samuel, character of his poetry.

Byron, Lord, his egotism and its success.

Caesar, accounts of his campaigns, regarded as history.

Camden, Lord, joins the Whig opposition.

Canning, George, popular comparison of, with Mr Pitt. His activity in Pitt's cause.

Carey, his translation of the Divine Comedy of Dante.

Carmagnoles, the, of Barere. Lord Ellenborough's.

Carmichael, Miss, or Polly, in Dr Johnson's house.

Carnot, M. Hippolyte, his part in the Memoirs of Bertrand Barere.

Carolan, his compositions.

Carrier, the tyrant of Nantes, placed under arrest.

Casti, character of his Animali Parlanti.

Catholicism, Roman, the most poetical of all religions. Its great revival at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Treaty concluded by Charles II. by which he bound himself to set up Catholicism in England.

Catiline, Sallust's account of the Conspiracy of.

Cavendish, Lord John, becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer. Resigns.

Cervantes, delight with which his Don Quixote is read.

Charles II., King of England. Influence of his residence abroad upon his character and tastes. His treaty respecting Roman Catholics.

Chatham, first Earl of, compared by Mirabeau. His declining years. His last appearance in the House of Lords.

Chatham, second Earl of, his mismanagement of the Admiralty.

Chaumette, one of the accusers of the Girondists before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Christ Church, Oxford, cry of, against Bentley.

Christianity, effect of the victory of, over paganism.

Church of Ireland, Speech on.

Churchill, his insult to Johnson.

Civil War, the great.

Clarendon, his history of the Rebellion, charge of garbling it.

Classical writers, celebrity of the great.

Cleomenes, causes and results of his raving cruelty.

Clergyman, the Country, his Trip to Cambridge.

Club, The, formation of. Members of the.

"Coalition," formation of the. Universal disgust. End of the Coalition.

Coates, Romeo, the actor.

Cock Lane Ghost, the.

Collot, d'Herbois, becomes a member of the Committee of Public Safety. Attacked in the streets. Brought to trial. Condemned by the Convention to be removed to a distant place of confinement. His end.

Condorcet, strength brought by him to the Girondist party. His melancholy end.

Confidence in Ministry of Lord Melbourne. Speech on.

Constantinople, empire of, its retrogression and stupefaction.

Convention, the French, of. The Girondists. The Mountain. Character of the diplomatic language during the reign of the Convention.

Copyright, Speeches on.

Corday, Charlotte, her murder of Marat.

Corn Laws, Speech on.

Corneille, attempts of the Academy to depress the rising fame of.

Cornwallis, General, his surrender to the Americans.

Cottabus, the Athenian game of.

Couthon, becomes a member of the Committee of Public Safety. His execution.

Cowley, Mr Abraham, and Mr John Milton, conversation between, touching the great Civil War.

Criticism, verbal. Improvement of the science of criticism. The critical and poetical faculty distinct and incompatible.

Cyrus, Xenophon's Life of, its character.

Dante, criticism on. His first adventure in the popular tongue. Influences of the times in which he lived upon his works. His love of Beatrice. His despair of happiness on earth. Close connection between his intellectual and moral character. Compared with Milton. His metaphors and comparisons. Little impression made by the forms of the external world upon him. Fascination revolting and nauseous images had for his mind. His use of ancient mythology in his poems. His idolatry of Virgil. Excellence of his style. Remarks upon the translations of the Divine Comedy. His veneration for writers inferior to himself. How regarded by the Italians of the fourteenth century.

Danton, character of. His death.

David, M. d'Angers, the sculptor, his part in the Memoirs of Bertrand Barere.

De Foe, effect of his Robinson Crusoe on the imagination of the child and the judgment of the man.

Demerville, the Jacobin, betrayed by his friend Barere.

Democracy, a pure. Mr Mill's view of a pure and direct.

Demosthenes, compared by Mr Mitford to Aeschines. His irresistible eloquence.

Denham, Sir John, character of his poetry.

Denis, St, Abbey of, laid waste by Barere.

"Dennis, St, and St George, in the Water, some Account of the Lawsuit between the Parishes of."

Deserted Village of Oliver Goldsmith.

Desmoulins, Camille, his attack on the Reign of Terror. Reply of Barere.

Desmoulins, Mrs, in Dr Johnson's house.

Despotic rulers. Theory of a despotic government.

Dies Irae.

Dionysius, his criticisms.

Diplomatic language used by the French Convention.

Directory, the Executive, of France, formation of.

Dissenters, persecution of the, by the Cavaliers. Relieved by Charles II. Prosecutions consequent on the enterprise of Monmouth. The Dissenters courted by the government of James II.

Dissenters' Chapels Bill, Speech on.

Divine Comedy of Dante, the great source of the power of the. Remarks on the translations of the.

Djezzar Pasha, his cruelty.

Doddington, Bubb, his kindness to Samuel Johnson.

Don Quixote, delight with which it is read.

Dorset, Earl of, his poetry.

Drama, the old English. Compared with that of Athens and France. Causes of the excellence of the English drama. Superiority of dramatic to other works of imagination. Extinction of the drama by the Puritans. The drama of the time of Charles II. Dryden's plays.

Dryden, John, place assigned to him as a poet. His merits and defects. Influence exercised by him on his age. Two parts into which his life divides itself. His small pieces presented to patrons. Character of his Annus Mirabilis. His rhyming plays. His impossible men and women. His tendency to bombast. His attempts at fairy imagery. His incomparable reasonings in verse. His art of producing rich effects by familiar words. Catholicity of his literary creed. Causes of the exaggeration which disfigure his panegyrics. Character of his Hind and Panther. And of his Absalom and Achitophel. Compared with Juvenal. What he would probably have accomplished in an epic poem. Compared with Milton.

Dubois, Cardinal, his mode of dealing with public petitions.

Dumont, M., review of his Souvenirs sur Mirabeau. Services rendered by him to society. His interpretation of Bentham's works. His view of the French Revolution. His efforts to instruct the French in political knowledge. Sketch of the character of Mirabeau. Of Sieyes and Talleyrand. And of his own character.

Dumourier, his Girondist sympathies. His defection.

Dundas, Henry, Lord Advocate, commencement of his friendship with Pitt.

Dunning, Mr, joins the Whig opposition.

Duroc, General, his letter to Barere.

Eady, Dr, his advertisements.

Edinburgh Election, speech at.

Education, Speech on.

Education, the, of the Athenians. Defects of their conversational education.

Egotism, the pest of conversation. Zest given by it to writing.

Eleusinian mysteries, the.

Ellenborough, Lord, his Carmagnoles.

Ellis, Welbore.

England, revolution in the poetry of. Mr Mill's remarks on the British Constitution. His view of the constitution of the English Government. Mr Sadler's statement of the law of population in England. The English Revolution compared with the French. Mildness of the revolution caused by the Reform Bill. Makes war against France.

Epistles, Petrarch's.

Epitaph on Henry Martyn.

Epitaph on Lord William Bentinck.

Epitaph on Sir Benjamin Heath Malkin.

Epitaph on Lord Metcalfe.

Euphuism in England.

Euripides, mother of. His jesuitical morality. How regarded by Quintillian.

Evil, question of the origin of, in the world.

Exclusion of Judges from the House of Commons, Speech on.

Federalism, the new crime of, in France. Federalism as entertained by Barere.

Fenelon, his principles of good government, as shown in his Telemachus.

Fluxions, discovery of the method of.

Fortune, remedies for Good and Evil, Petrarch's.

Fowler, Edward, John Bunyan's answer to.

Fox, Charles James, his character. His great political error. The King's detestation of him. Becomes Secretary of State under the Duke of Portland. His India Bill. His speeches.

Fragments of a Roman Tale.

France, character of the poetry of. Characteristics of the personifications of the drama of. Spirit excited in France at the time of the Revolution by some of the ancient historians. Burke's character of the French Republic. Population of. Condition of the government of, in 1799. Strictures of M. Dumont on the National Assembly. Infancy of political knowledge of the French at the period of the Revolution. The English Revolution compared with the French. Arguments against the old monarchy of France. The first compared with the second French Revolution. Causes of the first Revolution. Condition of France for eighty years previous to the Revolution. Causes which immediately led to that event. Difficulties of the Constitution of 1791. The war with the continental coalition. Effect of the League of Pilnitz on the position of the King. Formation and meeting of the Convention. The two great parties of the Convention—the Girondists and the Mountain. Death of the King. Policy of the Jacobins. The new crime of federalism. Defection of Dumourier and appointment of the Committee of Public Safety. Irruption of the mob into the palace of the Tuileries. Destruction of the Girondists. Establishment of the Reign of Terror. Condition of France during the reign of Louis XIV. And during that of Louis XV. Fenelon's principles of good government. His views incomprehensible to his countrymen. Loss to France on the death of the Duke of Burgundy. The Regency of Philip of Orleans. The Duke of Bourbon. Downward course of the monarchy, and indications of the forthcoming revolution. The Greek and Roman models of the French legislators. Victories of France in 1794. The memorable ninth of Thermidor. Execution of Robespierre and his accomplices. End of the Jacobin dominion in France. Condition of the nation at this period. Formation of the Constitution of 1795. Bonaparte's return from Egypt and assumption of absolute power. Political spies in France. Defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. The Chamber of Representatives. The Royalist Chamber under the Bourbons. Review of the policy of the Jacobins. War declared by England against.

French Academy, its services to literature.

Froissart, character of his history.

Garrick, David, relation between him and his old master Johnson. A member of the Literary Club.

Garth, Dr, insults Bentley and extols Boyle.

Gates of Somnauth, the Speech on.

Gaudet, the Girondist, his execution.

Gensonne, the Girondist leader. His trial. His death.

Geologist, Bishop Watson's description of a.

George III., his treatment of his ministers.

Georgics, Political.

Germaine, Lord George.

Gibbon, Edward, charges brought against him as a historian. His part in The Club.

Girondists, or Brissotines, Barere's account of the proceedings against the. Sketch of the political party so called. Its struggles with the Mountain. Accusation brought against the leaders of the party. Defeated by the Mountain. Impeached by their late colleague Barere. Their trial. Their fate.

Goldsmith, Oliver, his birth and early life. His first schoolmaster. His personal appearance. His college life. Death of his father. His attempts at the church, law, and physic. His rambles on foot through Flanders, France, and Switzerland. His disregard of truth. His return to England, and desperate expedients to obtain a living. His literary drudgery. Character of his works. Introduced to Johnson. One of the original members of The Club. Removes from Breakneck Steps to the Temple. Story of the publication of the Vicar of Wakefield. His Traveller. His Dramas. His Deserted Village. His She Stoops to Conquer. His Histories. His arts of selection and condensation. His intimacy with the great talkers of the day. His conversational powers. How regarded by his associates. His virtues and vices. His death. His cenotaph in Westminster Abbey. His biographers. His part in The Club.

Gomer Chephoraod, King of Babylon, apologue of.

Goodnatured Man, the, of Oliver Goldsmith.

Government of India, Speech on.

Government, proper conditions of a good. Review of Mr Mill's Essays on, etc. His chapter on the ends of government. And on the means. His view of a pure and direct democracy. Of an oligarchy. And of a monarchy. Deduction of a theory of politics in the mathematical form. Government according to Mr Mill only necessary to prevent men from plundering each other. His argument that no combination of the three simple forms of government can exist. His remarks on the British constitution. His hope for mankind in the government of a representative body. The real security of men against bad government. Mr Mill's views as to the qualifications of voters for representatives. The desire of the poor majority to plunder the rich minority. Effects which a general spoliation of the rich would produce. Method of arriving at a just conclusion on the subject of the science of government. Mr Bentham's defence of Mr Mill's Essays. Deduction of the theory of government from the principles of human nature. Remarks on the Utilitarian theory of government. Mode of tracking the latent principle of good government. Checks in political institutions. Power. Constitution of the English government.

Greece, review of Mr Mitford's History of. Gross ignorance of the modern historians of Greece. The imaginative and critical schools of poetry in.

Greeks, domestic habits of the. Change in their temper at the close of the Peloponnesian war. Character of their fashionable logic. Causes of the exclusive spirit of the Greeks.

Hall, Robert, his eloquence.

Hamlet, causes of its power and influence.

Happiness, principle of the greatest, of the greatest number examined. The most elevated station the principle is ever likely to attain. The Westminster Reviewer's defence of the "greatest happiness principle."

Hayley, his translation of the Divine Comedy of Dante.

Heat, Lord Bacon's mode of tracking the principle of.

Hebert, the Jacobin, his vile character. Accuses the Girondists before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Hebrides, Johnson's visit to the.

Herodotus, character of his history. His faults. Character of the people for whom the book was composed. His history compared with that of Thucydides. Herodotus regarded as a delineator of character.

Heron, Robert, his drama of News from Camperdown.

Hervey, Henry, his kindness to Samuel Johnson.

History, Mr Mitford's views of. The true domain of history. Qualifications necessary for writing. The history of Herodotus. That of Thucydides. Johnson's remarks on history. Xenophon's history. Polybius and Arrian. Character of the historians of the Plutarch class. English classical associations and names compared with those of the ancients. Spirit excited in England and in France by the writers of the Plutarch class. Livy. Caesar. Sallust. Tacitus. Merits and defects of modern historians. Froissart, Machiavelli, and Guicciardine. Effect of the invention of printing. Causes of the exclusiveness of the Greeks and Romans. Effect of the victory of Christianity over paganism. Establishment of the balance of moral and intellectual influence in Europe. The species of misrepresentation which abounds most in modern historians. Hume, Gibbon, and Mitford. Neglect of the art of narration. Effect of historical reading compared to that produced by foreign travel. Character of the perfect historian. Instruction derived from the productions of such a writer.