dents which have many times heretofore dashed to the ground the hopes of the age, is there no danger? A day may bring forth that state of things which makes a Revolution of vio lence inevitable: for who could quell the vehemence of an ignorant people-in politics ignorant-if excited by want, and despair of the good which has been promised?" * This, then, by the admission of the Movement party, is the state to which they have reduced the coun try by their Reform in Parliament. Undergoing a silent, but progressive Revolution, which is rapidly throwing off the old slough of the Constitution, and quivering on the edge of a bloody convulsion the moment that any serious check is given to the demands of an "ignorant people."

The excessive weakness and vacillation of Government is apparent to all the world: to none more than their late noisy and extravagant adulators among the Revolutionary party. Let us again hear what the Radicals say on the subject." The Government, that is, the few chosen from all the people as the men fit to rule the land, and whose opportunities and intelligence should render them leaders and guides to the House, have turned out hare-brained riders. At one moment they run to outstrip the thing needed, and the next fall back trembling at the speed they make-blind leaders of the blind. There is not, nor has there been, a more awkward thing in nature

or nature's works, than the present House of Commons. The mob of Rome might be counted upon with as much certainty as this mob of gentlemen." Such is the account of the effects of the first great Democratic invasion of the Constitution, from the very persons who were most strenuous in supporting its introduction. We do not refer to their opinions as an authority: we quote them as the testimony of an unwilling witness.

The divisions of last Session are amply sufficient to demonstrate this alarming weakness of Government, and those of this Session, short as it has hitherto been, place it in a still stronger light. We say the weakness of Government, because the present is no question of Ministry or place, of Whig or Tory; it is that of order against anarchy, of monarchy against republicanism, which is now at stake. On the great constitutional questions which involve the very existence of a mixed constitution, and in resisting motions which struck at the very foundations of the monarchy, the majorities of Government were so small, and their defeats so frequent, as to leave Ministry repeatedly on the verge of dissolution; and such as under any former Administration, and under the influence of any weaker feeling, than that in abandoning the helm, they would expose the empire to certain shipwreck, must inevitably have led to their resignation.‡

Would that we could add, that,

Ministerial majority

For the motion

155 In the House, 221 S

376.

66.

Ministerial majority

21 sib

upon the nation. Alas! our worst fears have been realized; the growth of the Radical party, the peremptory nature of the instructions communicated by the new town constituencies is now apparent; and Government, so far from gaining strength, is daily increasing in weakness. Questions on which a considerable majority were obtained last year, are now abandoned; and those like the Corn Laws, on which the vital interests of society depend, are defended only by a daily decreasing majority. A very slight retrospect of the present Session, short as it hitherto has been, must be sufficient to demonstrate this to every unprejudiced mind.

The motion of Mr Whitmore, for a repeal of the Corn Lawe, was thrown out last Session by a majority of 305 against 106: the whole number who voted being 411. This year, a similar motion, brought for ward by Mr Hume, disguised under the thin veil of a protecting duty of 10s., diminishing by a shilling annually till it is extinguished, was rejected by a majority of 312 to 155: the whole number who voted being 467. Thus, all the efforts of part of the Government and the Conservatives acting together, and with the aid, too, of more than half of the Irish Radicals, could only swell the opponents of the measure from 305 to 312, that is, by 7 members; while the opposite party increased from 106 to 155, that is, by 49 members.

But this is not all. By far the worst feature in that question was the indecision and vacillation exhibited by Government during its discussion. Sir James Grahame, indeed, made a noble speech on the occasion, in defence of the great interests of the empire; but what did Lord Althorp, the leader of the

House of Commons, declare? Why, that he agreed with the arguments urged by Mr Hume and the opponents of the Corn Laws, but that as the Parliamentary investigation of last Session had proved the agricultural interests to be in a state of great depression, and the manufacturing comparatively prosperous, this was not the time to press the change. Mr Poulett Thomson, a member of the Government, though not a Cabinet Minister, argued strenuously against the Corn Laws, while Lord Howick, son, and Mr. Ellice, brother-in-law, to Earl Grey, with Mr William Brougham, brother to the Lord Chancellor, and many other members or relations of Government, voted on the same side! Thus Ministers are divided on the subject, while the opposite party are rapidly increasing in numbers and confidence. It is easy to predict what will be the result of such a contest.

Mr. Harvey's motion," that the Speaker make arrangements for publishing the names of each member in the minority and majority on each division," a measure evidently and powerfully calculated to increase the subjection of the Members to the new constituencies, was thrown out last session by a majority of 48. This session, the point has been conceded by Lord Althorp, and the new system will speedily be put in force. The old, established, and hitherto unchallenged right of the Crown to grant pensions, has been maintained in the House of Commons this session against Mr Harvey's motion, only by a majority of 4; and since that time the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been compelled to succumb in the conflict, to abandon the principle that the King is entitled to judge for himself in these matters,

numbers were

For the motion

For Lord Althorp's amendment,

Mr O'Connell, the great agitator, the leader of Irish, and it may almost be said of English democracy, obtained by a majority of 97, a resolution of the House of Com'mons to appoint an enquiry into the conduct of Baron Smith, one of the greatest and best men whom Ireland ever produced. His charges against him were, that he began business at 11-sat too long, and did too much work, and denounced from the Bench the efforts of the agitators, under whose influence crime had multiplied to such a degree that Ministers themselves tell us, "the only question was, whether Ireland was not to relapse into the savage anarchy of Abyssinia."* This vote was, by a great effort of the gentlemen of the House of Commons, rescinded by a majority of 4-a memorable example of moral courage in the majority; a lamentable proof of the state of the representation, when that majority was so small!

Inconsiderable as the portion of the session therefore is, which has already elapsed, it has evinced an increasing weakness in Government to the highest degree alarming. But melancholy as these prospects are, they are nothing to what is opened up by the sudden change which has taken place in the declaration of Ministers regarding the Church, and the clear evidence of conscious weakness which their conduct now affords in regard to that first and most important part of the social edifice.

The Radicals, like the Revolutionary party, in all ages and in all countries, consider the Church as their first victim, and exult more in the success of their attempts to depress or degrade religion, than in all their triumphs over the civil institutions of the Empire. "The great triumphs of the session in this department," says the Westminster Review, "have been the defeat of the Sabbath Observance Bill, and the Irish Tithes Bill; and though the English Tithes Commutation Bill

clause in the Irish Church Bill has, more than any other measure, damped the confidence in Ministers as friends to unflinching Church Reform." This being the well-known and settled determination of the Radicals, and the Church being avowedly the first and favourite point of their attack, it was the chief duty of Ministers to be cautious but firm on this subject; to consider well the ground they took, but having taken it, to defend it manfully; and, above all, to avoid that ruinous irresolution and vacillation, which in political, not less than military conflicts, is the sure prelude of defeat.

It was with surprise, therefore, but no small degree of satisfaction, that the Conservatives, whether Whig or Tory, (for that title is already including the estimable even of the Reform party,) heard the strong and emphatic declarations of Earl Grey in favour of the Church, delivered both in his place in Parliament, and in conversation with the Dissenters of Nottingham and other places. They were delighted to find that the real objects of complaint only were to be redressed; that the hand of spoliation was to be stayed; and that Lord John Russell's bill relating to marriages, burials, registers, and other points not touching on the real interests of the Establishment, afforded the measure of the concession which Ministers were to admit. Buthow brief are the days of hope to the friends of order, under a Government exposed to the pressure of an insatiable democracy! Hardly were the words of consolation uttered; scarcely had the feeling of joy shot through the hearts of the friends of Christianity, when the divisions on the pension list, Baron Smith, and the Marquis of Chandos's motion regarding agricultural taxation, ensued; the elections at Leeds and Dudley shewed Ministers that they were losing the support of the Dissenters and Radicals, and instantly the transient gleam was overcast. Clouds, darker than ever, succeeded. Lord Grey declared that the bill introduced by Lord John Russell into the lower