larging the electoral basis,—some Reformers treat as a sine quâ non; but others speak of it with doubt, or with indifference, or with positive disapprobation. 2. A measure which at present wins more general favour is, the Disfranchisement of the Spiritual Peers in the Upper House. 3. The Ballot, a favourite scheme amongst very earnest and energetic Reformers, is still discountenanced by numbers of those who, at one time or other, have been looked up to as leaders of the movement,-by Lord Brougham in particular, and, so recently as the 19th of May 1835, by Lord John Russell, even while yet smarting from the uncicatrized mortification of his Devonshire campaign, and openly ascribing his defeat to intimidation. Now, where a personal interest so keen as this will not overrule a man's objections, the case, as in relation to him, may be thought hopeless; and yet I question myself whether some, who have hitherto opposed the ballot, are not covertly preparing a case of alleged extremity to justify its adoption, which case would, of course, derive the strength of a rebound from the fact and the notoriety of their previous opposition. The talk is more and more of "intimidation;" every species and variety of influence, however laudable and salutary, by which the upper ranks are connected with the lower, being denounced under that name. Rejected candidates have a natural license for complaining: we all construe their complaints indulgently. But another class, the class of timid voters, have reasons still more urgent for pleading intimidation, where nothing of the kind exists. Shopkeepers of a petty order, who cannot afford to make enemies either amongst Reformers or anti-Reformers, especially where their natural

temper concurs with their position in producing a timid love of quietness,-men hating strife, constitutionally, perhaps, as much as they fear it in policy, and very often having no decided views on the party questions at issue, are apt enough to plead a vague necessity of complying with some overruling influence in scme imaginary background, where no such influence has been, in fact, put forward or insinuated, and where the alleged necessity of their situation has existed only in pretence, or, at most, in suspicion. These cases of merely presumptive intimidation will multiply exceedingly, as the cases multiply of electioneering contests. Intimidation, and obscure insinuations of intimidation, will be offered as the best general way of shaping an evasion from the persecutions of canvassers, until it will be said that a case of necessity has arisen for the Ballot. therefore triumph; but at present, greatly divided upon its merits.

That measure will the Reformers are

These three measures-one for enlarging the constituency; one for giving effect to that enlarged constituency, by liberating them from alien influence; and a third for altering the present constitution of the Upper House are so evidently parts of the same system, all having the same obvious purpose to throw a vast infusion of democracy into the legislative forces of the land, that he who objects to any one of them, stands declared, in that act, an enemy, or, at the least, a hollow friend of the reform principle. Sir William Molesworth, during the late struggle in South Devon, talked with zealotry for the Ballot why?-because he is a sincere Reformer, and knows that the whole purposes of his party can be ob

tained but slowly and imperfectly without the Ballot. Lord John Russell opposes the Ballot: why? because he, by interest and by connexions, is, and must be, an aristocrat; and if he avails himself of aid from the reform party, it is because the path of the Reformers coincides, for a certain part of the way (or may, by skilful management, be made to coincide), with the path of his own political clique. But though he has gone into this dangerous alliance for momentary considerations of benefit to his party [in reality, it is evident that Lord John's private party must have gone to wreck in 1830 but for this alliance, and equally evident that, on many subsequent occasions, that party has been violently held above water by this artificial connection], yet it is impossible to suppose that any relations merely personal can absorb those permanent relations to the aristocratic interest in which he is placed by his rank, his numerous and illustrious connections, and the vast possessions of his family. It happens, also, that Lord John, before he came into a situation that required him to practise any arts of dissimulation, had written for many years as a regular author, had written very respectably, and upon themes connected with political and constitutional questions: by a rare misfortune for himself, he, more than any other of his party, was committed in the diplomatic sense; and thus it happens that we have a key to his native opinions, and can appreciate the basis of his views, before they had received any disturbing impulse from the difficult circumstances of his position. Lord John, therefore, in common with other aristocratic Reformers, keeps his eye for ever fixed upon that parting point at which his road is to

diverge from that of the Reformers. He has a quarrel in reversion whenever it shall seem that the hour has struck for this parting; and not impossibly this very question of Ballot is destined to furnish the matter of quarrel. Far am I from supposing it at all shocking to our historical experience, that Lord John Russell, like the too famous father to the reigning King of the French, might go on to the very catastrophe of the great drama, with the avowed enemies and destined destroyers of his order. The case is common enough. But, in this instance, drawing my auguries from the known respectability of the man, I believe that Lord John will effectually co-operate with those who meditate ruin to the aristocracy of England, and too probably will accomplish it, not by going along with them to the end, and glorying in his own shame,-I believe him too good a man, and too discerning a man, for that, but by lending them a hesitating sanction, and, with many misgivings, yielding to their demands an unsteady assistance, until, at last, growing alarmed, and halting with an air of defiance, he finds out that his sanction and his assistance are become alike indifferent to the Reformers. He will first see cause to

resist, when all the powers have been surrendered by which resistance can be made effectual

NOTE.

THE following paper was written by De Quincey, partly as a continuation of the preceding article, and partly in order to meet the protests and dissentient comments made by the editor of "Tait's Edinburgh Magazine," wherever the editor considered his contributor mistaken in matters of historical fact, or drawing unfair conclusions. The censor referred to, therefore, is the editor of "Tait's Magazine," who, it is fair to add, though diametrically opposed to De Quincey in politics, made his strictures in the most friendly spirit. This may be inferred from the following remarks appended to the first paper:"The Tories are continually complaining that their principles are misrepresented in the Liberal magazines and newspapers. So little has that great national party into which the Whigs and Radicals are gradually melting down to fear from the freest and most sifting discussion, that we rejoice in affording an opportunity to one of the most able and eloquent of the Tory adherents of defining the political tenets, and unfolding the principles of action by which the Tories have been guided since they first arose as a distinct party in the state."

Mr De Quincey, it is said, pled hard for the admission of his rejoinder into the Magazine; but the editor did not choose to continue the controversy, or to give his