while, in despite of her, he could pronounce his memorable boast-I shall go down to posterity with my code in my hand!" You have vanquished him in the field; strive now to rival him in the sacred arts of peace! Outstrip him as a lawgiver, whom, in arms, you overcame! The lustre of the Regency will be eclipsed by the more solid and enduring splendour of the Reign. The praise which false courtiers feigned for our Edwards and Harrys, -the Justinians of their day,-will be the just tribute of the wise and the good, to that monarch under whose sway so mighty an undertaking shall be accomplished. Of a truth, sceptres are chiefly to be envied, for that they bestow the power of thus conquering and ruling. It was the boast of Augustus-it formed part of the glare in which the perfidies of his earlier years were lost-that he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble; a praise not unworthy a great prince, and to which the present reign has its claims also. But how much nobler will be our sovereign's boast, when he shall have it to say, that he found law dear, and left it cheap; found it a sealed book, left it an open letter; found it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, left it the staff of honesty, and the shield of innocence! To me, much reflecting on these things, it has always seemed a worthier honour to be the instrument of making you bestir yourselves in this high matter, than to enjoy all that office can bestowoffice, of which the patronage would be irksome incumbrance, the emoluments superfluous, to one content, with the rest of his industrious fellow-citizens, that his own hands minister to his wants; and as for the power supposed to follow it-I have lived nearly half a century, and I have learned that power and place may be severed. But one power I do prize-that of being the advocate of my countrymen here, and their fellow-labourer elsewhere, in those things which concern the best interests of mankind. That power, I know full well, no government can give no change take away!

XIX.-LORD BROUGHAM ON THE TYRANNIES AND INTRIGUES OF COURTS.

To one charge, however, which they bring against me, I must, no doubt, plead guilty,-I have not found favour with the courtiers, and I am no longer in office. My political habits; my principles; my popular feelings; the perpetual struggle of my life for the rights of my fellowcitizens; the determination which guides my public conduct, that the interests of the people shall be the sole rule of the government; above all, my fixed and unalterable resolution that the Reform Bill shall bear its natural fruits, by giving this country at length a really cheap government, without which it is a useless and barren stock ;—all these things are the worst of crimes in the eyes of a court, and the result of them is, that I now meet my fellow-citizens in a private station, and absolutely independent in the performance of all my duties. Nor do I boast of having made any great sacrifice. If it were not somewhat late in the day for moralizing, I could tell of the prerogatives, not so very high,-the enjoyments, none of the sweetest, which he loses who surrenders place, oftentimes misnamed power. To be responsible for measures which others control, perchance contrive; to be chargeable with leaving undone things which he ought to have done, and had all the desire to do, without the power of doing; to be compelled to trust to those whom he knew to be utterly untrustworthy; and on the most momentous occasions, involving the interests of millions, implicitly to confide in quarters where common prudence forbade reposing a common confidence; to have schemes of the wisest, the most profound policy, judged and decided on by the most ignorant and the most frivolous of human beings, and the most generous aspirations of the heart for the happiness of his species chilled by frowns of the most selfish and sordid of the race:-these are among the unenviable prerogatives of place,-of what is falsely called power in this country; and yet I doubt if

there be not others less enviable still. To be planted upon the eminence from whence he must see the base features of human nature, uncovered and deformed; witness the attitude of climbing ambition from a point whence it is only viewed as creeping and crawling, tortuous and venomous, in its hateful path; be forced to see the hideous sight of a naked human heart, whether throbbing in the bosom of the great vulgar or of the little, is not a very pleasing occupation for any one who loves his fellowcreatures, and would fain esteem them;—and, trust me, that he who wields power and patronage for but a little month shall find the many he may try to serve, furiously hating him for involuntary failure; while the few he may succeed in helping to the object of all their wishes shall, with a preposterous pride, (the most unamiable part of the British character,) seek to prove their independence by showing their ingratitude, if they do not try to cancel the obligation by fastening a quarrel upon him. Yet to even all this I might have reconciled myself from a desire to further great measures, and from the pleasure which excitement gives to active minds, or, if you will, from the glory which inspires ambitious notions among statesmen as well as conquerors. But worse to be endured than all was the fetter and the cramp imposed on one used to independence, the being buried while yet alive to the people's condition and claims-buried in the house of form and etiquette appointed for all ministers. Who, then, can marvel at the exultation which I feel to shake and to brace every fibre of my frame when, casting off these trammels-bursting through the cerements of that tomb-I start into new life, and resume my position in the van of my countrymen, struggling for their rights, and moving onwards in the accelerated progress of improvement, with a boundless might and a resistless fury which prostrates in the dust all the puny obstacles that can be raised by the tyranny of courts and their intrigues -the persecution of bigots and their cunning-the sordid plots of greedy monopolists, whether privileged companies, or overgrown establishments, or corrupt municipalities ? In this proud position I am now placed; and I have no

desire at all to leave it. I am once more absolutely free -the slave of no party-at the mercy of no court intrigue -in the service of my country, and of that only master. Firm on this vantage ground, it must indeed be an honest government, and a strong one,- —a government which promises much for the people, and is capable of accomplishing much of what it promises, that can ever tempt me to abandon my independence in the front of my countrymen, and enlist with any ministry whatever.

XX.-SIR R. PEEL ON LIMITED MONARCHY.

GENTLEMEN, you are probably aware that of late great hostility has been shown towards the House of Lords; that notice has been given by an hon. member that he would, at an early period of next session, move for leave to bring in a bill to reform the House of Lords. By reforming the House of Lords, I understand nothing more than that they should be deprived of having a voice, and by it is meant the establishment of a popular assembly free from all control. It is my opinion that such an assembly, investing itself with absolute power of legislation, would soon attack the prerogatives of the Crown, and destroy the Constitution. I do not hesitate to say that such a usurpation on the part of one branch of the legislature would end in the most intolerable tyranny. Gentlemen, I am for the maintenance of the British Constitution. Gentlemen, I hope that you will not pass such a libel on the Reform Bill, as to declare it inconsistent with the maintenance of the British Constitution. I for one cannot do so, and I will strive to the utmost of my power to prevent the tyranny that would arise from that assembly which should be elected solely by the public voice. The history of all countries, at least the history of every country in Europe that have tried the experiment, that have adopted the establishment of such an assembly, proved that it was not compatible with the liberty or happiness of any of those

countries. Why, the very history of our own country, as well as the history of France, and other countries showed what were the results of being governed solely by an assembly elected by the public voice. Such an assembly generally ends in the assumption of supreme power by some successful military commander, to whom the people revert, thinking it better to submit to one tyrant rather than bow to the many-headed one, to which they had been before subject, in the shape of one popular assembly. If they should risk trying such an experiment, they would find that the results would always be the same that they did not arise from anything like mere accidental circumstances, but proceeded from causes inherent to human nature. When I consider the feelings of the people of this country-when I consider the way property is distributed—when I consider the rights of that property-when I consider the ancient laws by which every thing connected with this country is bound together, it is my belief that if one assembly should legislate singly, call it the House of Commons, or by any other name you please, the same results would follow which I have already pointed out. In such an assembly you would have the civil power usurped by some military commander, and you would be glad, like the people of France, after pouring out a deluge of blood, to revert to the ancient order of things, and to establish monarchy once more.

XXI.-O'CONNELL ON THE BRITISH NATION. THE greetings with which I have been received-by the accumulation of congregated thousands-the congregation of rational men by whom I have been welcomed, all demonstrate that we are arrived at one of those periods of English history upon which turns the question whether the present state of things is to end in the degradation of the English name, or the exaltation of English virtue by the acquirement of our rights. We have come to the

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