swelled the torrent; and the last breath of the deluded multitude, when sinking in the waves, would have been to curse the authors of a nation's ruin.

Our next cause of thankfulness, is for the preservation of the institutions of the country; of that constitution which has survived so many perils, and produced such unparalleled blessings; under which our fathers have prospered, and the old time before them; which has been transmitted, like the Mantle of Elijah, from generation to generation, and even now saved the nation, it is to be hoped, from the abyss of wretchedness. It would have been a deplorable spectacle to have seen the British constitution perish from any cause; to have beheld the fabric of Alfred, matured by the experience, and adapted to the wants of successive generations, fall even under external violence, the sword of Napoleon, or the armies of Russia: but how much more terrible, to have seen it perish under the violence of its own subjects; sink into the grave from the impious hands of its own children! It is painful to see a family in private life behave with ingratitude to the authors of their being; revolt against the hands which had lulled them in infancy; discard the wisdom which had instructed their youth, and bring down the grey hairs of age with sorrow to the grave; But what shall we say to the nation which, in a transport of fury, could pull down the institutions under which they had attained unparalleled happiness; which had been weighed in the balance, and not found wanting; which had spread the sway of an island in the Atlantic, as far as the arms of conquest could reach, or the waters of the ocean extend; which had given birth to Milton and Newton, to Scott and Shakspeare; on which were reflected the glories of Palestine, the lustre of Cressy, the triumph of Blenheim; the country of Marlborough and Wellington, of Blake and Nelson; the nation which had ever been first in the career of usefulness, and last in the desertion of duty? All these glories, this long line of greatness, these countless millions of helpless beings, stood on the verge of destruction; with their own hands they had pushed out

upon the sea of revolution, and the monsters of the deep were raging for their prey! They have been saved after they had abandoned the helm, and resigned themselves to the tempest, by the firm and intrepid hands which seized it.

Our last cause of thankfulness is for the human race-for the countless myriads who looked to the shores of Britain for the last struggle between order and anarchy; and the triumph achieved for true freedom, by the first and greatest defeat of democratic oppression. Not merely as natives of England, but as citizens of the world, we rejoice in the triumph

the victory of experience over innovation-of balanced power over oppressive tyranny of the reign of Peace over the era of Blood. It is a proud thing for England, that, in this great crisis, she has not been wanting to her duty; that she has maintained her high place in the van of civilisation, and kept the lead alike in the ranks of Freedom, and the array of Wisdom. Centuries before the name of Liberty was known in the neighbouring states; while the nations around her were sunk in barbarism, or crouching under oppression, she erected the firm and fair fabric of public freedom; and now, when they are fawning before the career of revolution, and placing their necks beneath the many-headed monster of democratic power, she boldly stands out, erect and alone, to combat the tyrant when he is strongest, to grapple with the Hydra in his prime.

If any thing could add to the gratitude which we feel for these great achievements, it would be the satisfaction which must arise from the manner in which the great question has been treated in the House of Lords. The days are over when the people can be deluded by the old calumny of the Peers being behind the age-a set of incurables-a race of imbeciles, fit only to be discarded with disgrace. This debate has displayed their character in its true colours; it must silence the breath of vituperation, and open the eyes even of political blindness. The two great parties which divide the state have been brought into presence, each has sent forth its combatants into the field; and what a stupendous difference be

turns? From what a perilous set of electors have we been delivered by the defeat of the Bill! And on the edge of what a gulf of perdition did we stand, when the firmness of the Peers interposed for our salvation!

The merits of the illustrious men who have effected this great object will not be appreciated, if it is not recollected, that, unlike all other patriots, they stood opposed, not only to the weight of administration, but the fury of the people. In ordinary times, the patriot who withstands the influence of the executive, who resists temptation, and despises honours, and incurs danger in the discharge of duty, is supported by the applause and admiration of his fellow-citizens; millions repeat his words, and watch upon his actions; the perils of the moment are drowned in the magnitude of the presence in which they are incurred. But the British patriots of our day stood in a widely different, and far more disheartening situation. No admiring crowds attended their course -no grateful multitudes watched their contest-no sympathetic prayers arose from millions for their salvation. By a combination of circumstances, unprecedented in the annals of England, the weight of the executive, and the madness of the people, took the same direction; and the patriots who with magnanimous disinterestedness withstood the former, were exposed to unmeasured threats and atrocious obloquy from the latter. But, like the troops whom their noble leader headed at Waterloo, they manfully fronted on every side, with the same resolution repelled the terrors of the populace with which they flung back the efforts of the Administration; and, undazzled either by the lightnings of the throne or the thunder of the multitude, bore aloft the standard of England, conquering and to conquer.

To one body in the Peers the admiration of every true patriot is in an especial manner due. The bishops have long been held up to public obloquy as servile courtiers;-ever at the beck of the Crown, and incapable of exercising the independent

rights of British statesmen. What have such calumniators now to say? Have they yielded to the mandates of the Crown, or been intimidated by the fury of the democracy? Tempted by all the seductions of court favour, threatened with all the violence of republican ambition, denied promotion by the Ministers, threatened with confiscation by the populace, how have they acted? Like true patriots, like men of firmness and integrity, the worthy successors of the primitive martyrs, whom neither menaces nor allurements could swerve from the path of duty.

Of what incalculable importance is the House of Lords in the British Constitution; and how well does it deserve the praises, so long bestowed upon it, by the greatest and best of mankind!* What other government, in ancient or modern times, could have withstood the tempest which it has now, it is to be hoped, triumphantly weathered? Where shall we find, in the energy of democratic or the tranquillity of despotic states, a conservative strength, a renewing power, an inextinguishable vigour, comparable to what it has now displayed? Before the hurricane which the Standard of England has rode out, the despotism of Russia would have been prostrated, and the democracy of France rent in shreds.

The extraordinary ability, the moral courage, the magnanimous disinterestednessd, isplayed by the British Peers, were the direct and immediate consequence of the intermixture of plebeian ability with aristocratic feeling in their ranks; and the fortunate exertions to which the youth of the nobility are driven to maintain their ground against the incessant pressure of talent from the lower classes of society. It is in this circumstance of inestimable importance, that the real cause of the elastic vigour of the British aristocracy is to be found. Who were the men who have stood forth pre-eminent in this memorable contest? The Duke of Wellington, trained to exertion in the wars of India and the fields of Spain; Lord Harrowby, bred in laborious exertion in domestic government; Lord

Eldon, whose great abilities forced him from a humble station to the Chancellorship of England; Lord Lyndhurst, whose talents pressed through the terrible competition of the English bar; Lord Wharncliffe, long a tried and experienced debater in the Lower House; Lord Wynford, once the able leader of the Southern Circuit. It is the competition with such men; the incessant measuring of their strength with the greatest abilities which the Commons can produce; the long and stormy education in the Lower House of Parliament, which developes the intellectual powers of the English nobility; and compels even those, bred in the lap of wealth and luxury, to submit to the severe labour, and strenuous exertion, by which alone greatness in any walk of life is to be attained. We admire, as much as any men, the dignified energy of Lord Dudley, the manly vehemence of Lord Winchelsea, the ardent eloquence of Lord Carnarvon; but we cannot forget that, but for the salutary intermixture of plebeian ability, their great powers might have lain dormant; and the talents which have now saved a nation, been wasted in the frivolity and dissipation of fashionable life.

One deplorable effect of the Reform bill would have been, that it threatened to extinguish this collision of the aristocracy with the democracy; and by vesting the powers of government practically in the House of Commons, consign the Peers to that life of frivolous pleasure and inglorious ease, which constitutes at once the disgrace and the weakness of continental states. Young men, of noble blood or independent feelings, would have disdained to seek admission into the Lower House, when it could be obtained only by pandering to the diseased appetites and insatiable ambition of a fierce and vain democracy; or, if they had submitted to the degradation, they would, as in ancient Rome, have generally proved unsuccessful. The nobles of England would have retired in indignant silence to their palaces or their estates,-the career of usefulness would have been closed

VOL. XXX. NO. CLXXXVII.

to their ambition, the attractions of pleasure have drawn them into its whirlpool. Even although the House of Peers had not been formally abolished, as in the days of Cromwell, by the fury of democratic ambition, its power and its usefulness would have been at an end; deprived of the feeders to its ability, its weight in the constitution, its power of regulating the machine of government, its moral courage and capacity for exertion would have incessantly declined, and the practical extinction of the third estate left the Crown in open and hopeless hostility with republican ambition.

"When it was put to the members of the French Convention to say, whether Louis was guilty or innocent, the Assembly unanimously voted him guilty; and those who wished to save him, ventured only to divide upon the subordinate question, whether there should be an appeal to the people. Upon a question," says the republican Mignet," on which posterity will unananimously decide one way, the Assembly unanimously decided another."* We quoted this in July last, but recent events have strikingly demonstrated its application to these times. Such are the slavish shackles in which democratic ambition retains its representation. Servility worse than that of the senate of Tiberius; pliancy more disgraceful than that of Henry's parliaments; injustice more crying than the executions of Nero, were openly displayed by an Assembly in the first transports of revolutionary zeal, and with the words of justice and liberty incessantly on their lips. The fierce supporters of new-born equality, the ardent declaimers against regal oppression, were constrained to an act of unanimous injustice, as shameful as ever stained the seraglio of a Turkish despot.

Whence is it that liberty is so completely extinguished by the first triumph of democracy; that the power of deliberation is so soon taken away from the delegates of the people; that clubs and committees usurp the real powers of government, and the nominal legislature is so easily permitted only to register the edicts of

ignorant demagogues? Because the balance of government is at an end; because democratic has become as imperious as regal power; because the manyheaded monster is as impatient of control upon his passions as the single tyrant of Eastern infamy. Truth is as little heard in the halls of democracy as in the antechambers of princes, and the guillotine of the populace soon becomes as effectual a stifler as the bowstring of the sultan. Symptoms of this terrible ascendency were beginning to display themselves during the late revolutionary tempest. Not only did the imperious electors generally require pledges from their representatives as to their votes on every material question, but they constituted committees permanently sitting to control their conduct, and often called them to immediate and humiliating account, if they deviated in the slightest degree from their commands. The effect of this fatal assumption of power distinctly appeared in the debates of the Lower House. Not only were they distinguished by smaller ability, but incomparably less freedom of expression or independence of thought than formerly characterised that assembly. The reformers evidently spoke with the terrors of popular indignation hanging over their heads, and the knowledge that a single unlucky expression might lose them their seats in the next Parliament.

The consequences were such as in every age of the world have attended, and will attend, the undue and degrading exertion of authority. Genius deserted the reforming ranks; she shrunk from the unholy alliance with violence and constraint; learning disdained to lend its treasures to the cause of oppression; thought spurned at the control of vulgar assemblies, Those who felt the powers to govern would not submit to be governed. Certainly on no former occasion was the cause of reform supported by such large members and small ability in the House of Commons. With the exception of Mr Macauley, Mr Sheil, Mr Stanley, and Lord Althorp, who were all members for nomination boroughs before the reform tempest arose, who signalized themselves in its support in the Lower House?

The democrats were triumphant at the elections; they returned a great majority in their own interest; the influence of property was overturned; and what sort of rulers have they chosen for themselves? Men strong in voting, but weak in arguing, who could advance nothing in support of their measures, who shrunk into obscurity before the powerful array of talent by which they were assailed from the Opposition benches. We speak not of individuals, we allude to the general consequences of measures and institutions. The weakness of the reformers in debate was the subject of incessant obloquy even from their own supporters in the country; they were repeatedly told by the most vehement of the reforming journals, that if they said nothing night after night to counterbalance the heart-stirring speeches with which they were attacked, the thoughtful part of the nation would conclude that nothing was, because in truth nothing could be said. The cause of this silence is to be found, not in the impossibility of finding arguments for reform-for enough, especially on the popular side, can be urged, as the House of Peers proved, in its support, and arguments ad captandum vulgus suggest themselves readily enough to every understanding-but in the pupilage in which they were kept by their constituents, and the eternal law of nature, that genius never will be found in ranks that are controlled.

In truth, the profession of a statesman requires as long a course of previous study, as extensive experience, as powerful an understanding, as either that of a general, a lawyer, or a philosopher. What should we say, if the delegates of the manufacturing towns were to prescribe to a general what to do in presence of the enemy; if, like the Presbyterian preachers of old, the popular leaders of that age, they were to compel him to abandon the ridge of Lammermoor, and rush to certain destruction in the fields of Dunbar? What sort of figure would the democratic leaders exhibit in pleading a case with the Sugdens, the Scarlets, the Denmans of the day? What progress would they make in science with the Davys, the D'Alemberts, or the La Places of the age? And yet, does not the science of go