statesmen of the old school full of danger to the great safeguards of pubiic liberty, is now regarded by many persons as a safeguard tantamount, and more than tantamount, to all the rest together.

public feeling of which we speak. "It suggests melancholy reflections," says he, "in consequence of the strange course we have long held, that we are now no longer quarrelling about the character, or about the conduct of men, or the tenor of measures; but we are grown out of humour with the English Constitution itself; this is become the object of the animosity of Englishmen. This constitution in former days used to be the envy of the world; it was the pattern for politicians; the theme of the eloquent; the meditation of the philosopher in every part of the world. As to Englishmen, it was their pride, their consolation. By it they lived, and for it they were ready to die. Its defects, if it had any, were partly co

he, "in an endeavour to obtain new ad- | become a fourth estate of the realm. vantages at the expense of the other The publication of the debates, a pracorders of the state, for the benefit of tice which seemed to the most liberal the commons at large, have pursued strong measures, if it were not just, it was at least natural, that the constituents should connive at all their proceedings; because we ourselves were ultimately to profit. But when this submission is urged to us in a contest Burke, in a speech on parliamentary between the representatives and our-reform which is the more remarkable selves, and where nothing can be put because it was delivered long before into their scale which is not taken from the French Revolution, has described, ours, they fancy us to be children when in striking language, the change in they tell us that they are our representatives, our own flesh and blood, and that all the stripes they give us are for our good." These sentences contain, in fact, the whole explanation of the mystery. The conflict of the seventeenth century was maintained by the Parliament against the Crown. The conflict which commenced in the middle of the eighteenth century, which still remains undecided, and in which our children and grandchildren will probably be called to act or to suffer, is between a large portion of the people on the one side, and the Crown and the Parliament united on the other. The privileges of the House of Commons, those privileges which, in 1642, all London rose in arms to defend, which the people considered as synony-vered by partiality, and partly borne mous with their own liberties, and in comparison of which they took no account of the most precious and sacred principles of English jurisprudence, have now become nearly as odious as the rigours of martial law. That power of committing which the people anciently loved to see the House of Commnons exercise, is now, at least when employed against libellers, the most unpopular power in the Constitution. If the Commons were to suffer the Lords to amend money-bills, we do not believe that the people would care one straw about the matter. If they were to suffer the Lords even to originate money-bills, we doubt whether such a To investigate and classify the causes surrender of their constitutional rights of so great a change would require far would excite half so much dissatisfac- more thought, and far more space, than tion as the exclusion of strangers from we at present have to bestow. But a single important discussion. The some of them are obvious. During gallery in which the reporters sit has the contest which the Parliament car

by prudence. Now all its excellencies are forgot, its faults are forcibly dragged into day, exaggerated by every artifice of misrepresentation. It is despised and rejected of men; and every device and invention of ingenuity or idleness is set up in opposition, or in preference to it." We neither adopt nor condemn the language of reprobation which the great orator here employs. We call him only as a witness to the fact. That the revolution of public feeling which he described was then in progress is indisputable; and it is equally indisputable, we think, that it is in progress still.

ried on against the Stuarts, it had only | ciples, cannot be popular long after it to check and complain. It has since ceases to be weak. Its zeal for what had to govern. As an attacking body, the people, rightly or wrongly, conceive it could select its points of attack, and to be their interests, its sympathy with it naturally chose those on which it their mutable and violent passions, are was likely to receive public support. merely the effects of the particular cirAs a ruling body, it has neither the cumstances in which it is placed. As same liberty of choice, nor the same long as it depends for existence on the motives to gratify the people. With public favour, it will employ all the the power of an executive government, means in its power to conciliate that it has drawn to itself some of the vices, favour. While this is the case, defects and all the unpopularity of an execu-in its constitution are of little consetive government. On the House of quence. But, as the close union of Commons above all, possessed as it is such a body with the nation is the effect of the public purse, and consequently of an identity of interests not essential of the public sword, the nation throws but accidental, it is in some measure all the blame of an ill conducted war, dissolved from the time at which the of a blundering negotiation, of a dis- danger which produced it ceases to graceful treaty, of an embarrassing exist. commercial crisis. The delays of the Hence, before the Revolution, the Court of Chancery, the misconduct of question of Parliamentary reform was a judge at Van Diemen's Land, any of very little importance. The friends thing, in short, which in any part of of liberty had no very ardent wish for the administration any person feels as reform. The strongest Tories saw no a grievance, is attributed to the tyranny, objections to it. It is remarkable that or at least to the negligence, of that Clarendon loudly applauds the changes all-powerful body. Private individuals which Cromwell introduced, changes pester it with their wrongs and claims. far stronger than the Whigs of the A merchant appeals to it from the present day would in general approve. Courts of Rio Janeiro or St. Peters- There is no reason to think, however, burgh. A historical painter complains that the reform effected by Cromwell to it that his department of art finds made any great difference in the conno encouragement. Anciently the Par- duct of the Parliament. Indeed, if the liament resembled a member of oppo- House of Commons had, during the sition, from whom no places are ex- reign of Charles the Second, been pected, who is not expected to confer elected by universal suffrage, or if all favours and propose measures, but the seats had been put up to sale, as in merely to watch and censure, and who the French Parliaments, it would, we may, therefore, unless he is grossly in- suspect, have acted very much as it judicious, be popular with the great did. We know how strongly the Parbody of the community. The Parlia-liament of Paris exerted itself in favour ment now resembles the same person of the people on many important occaput into office, surrounded by peti- sions; and the reason is evident. tioners whom twenty times his patron-Though it did not emanate from the age would not satisfy, stunned with people, its whole consequence depended complaints, buried in memorials, com- on the support of the people. pelled by the duties of his station to bring forward measures similar to those which he was formerly accustomed to observe and to check, and perpetually encountered by objections similar to those which it was formerly his business to raise.

Perhaps it may be laid down as a general rule that a legislative assembly, not constituted on democratical prin

From the time of the Revolution the House of Commons has been gradually becoming what it now is, a great council of state, containing many members chosen freely by the people, and many others anxious to acquire the favour of the people; but, on the whole, aristocratical in its temper and interest. It is very far from being an illiberal and stupid oligarchy; but it is equally far

from being an express image of the the natural aristocracy, the capitalists general feeling. It is influenced by and the landowners, and by so widening the opinion of the people, and influ- the base of the government as to inenced powerfully, but slowly and cir-terest in its defence the whole of the cuitously. Instead of outrunning the middle class, that brave, honest, and public mind, as before the Revolution sound-hearted class, which is as anxious it frequently did, it now follows with slow steps and at a wide distance. It is therefore necessarily unpopular; and the more so because the good which it produces is much less evident to common perception than the evil which it inflicts. It bears the blame of all the mischief which is done, or supposed to be done, by its authority or by its connivance. It does not get the credit, on the other hand, of having prevented those innumerable abuses which do not exist solely because the House of Commons exists.

for the maintenance of order and the security of property, as it is hostile to corruption and oppression, succeed in averting a struggle to which no rational friend of liberty or of law can look forward without great apprehensions. There are those who will be contented with nothing but demolition; and there are those who shrink from all repair. There are innovators who long for a President and a National Convention; and there are bigots who, while cities larger and richer than the capitals of many great kingdoms are calling out for representatives to watch over their interests, select some hackneyed jobber in boroughs, some peer of the narrowest and smallest mind, as the fittest depositary of a forfeited franchise. Between these extremes there lies a more excellent way. Time is bringing round

A large part of the nation is certainly desirous of a reform in the representative system. How large that part may be, and how strong its desires on the subject may be, it is difficult to say. It is only at intervals that the clamour on the subject is loud and vehement. But it seems to us that, during the re-another crisis analogous to that which missions, the feeling gathers strength, and that every successive burst is more violent than that which preceded it. The public attention may be for a time diverted to the Catholic claims or the Mercantile code; but it is probable that at no very distant period, perhaps in the lifetime of the present generation, all other questions will merge in that which is, in a certain degree, connected with them all.

occurred in the seventeenth century. We stand in a situation similar to that in which our ancestors stood under the reign of James the First. It will soon again be necessary to reform that we may preserve, to save the fundamental principles of the Constitution by alterations in the subordinate parts. It will then be possible, as it was possible two hundred years ago, to protect vested rights, to secure every useful institution, every institution endeared. by antiquity and noble associations, and, at the same time, to introduce into the system improvements harmonizing with the original plan. It remains to be seen whether two hundred years have made us wiser.

Already we seem to ourselves to perceive the signs of unquiet times, the vague presentiment of something great and strange which pervades the community, the restless and turbid hopes of those who have every thing to gain, the dimly hinted forebodings of those who have every thing to lose. Many indications might be mentioned, in themselves indeed as insignificant as straws; but even the direction of a made. Firmness is a great virtue in straw, to borrow the illustration of Bacon, will show from what quarter the storm is setting in.

We know of no great revolution which might not have been prevented by compromise early and graciously

public affairs; but it has its proper sphere. Conspiracies and insurrections in which small minorities are engaged, A great statesman might, by ju- the outbreakings of popular violence dicious and timely reformations, by unconnected with any extensive proreconciling the two great branches of ject or any durable principle, are best

H

The

repressed by vigour and decision. To still the very alphabet to learn. He has shrink from them is to make them for- now, we think, done his worst. midable. But no wise ruler will con- subject which he has at last underfound the pervading taint with the taken to treat is one which demands slight local irritation. No wise ruler all the highest intellectual and moral will treat the deeply scated discon- qualities of a philosophical statesman, tents of a great party, as he treats an understanding at once comprehenthe fury of a mob which destroys mills sive and acute, a heart at once upright and power-looms. The neglect of this and charitable. Mr. Southey brings to distinction has been fatal even to go- the task two faculties which were never, vernments strong in the power of we believe, vouchsafed in measure so the sword. The present time is indeed copious to any human being, the faculty a time of peace and order. But it is of believing without a reason, and the at such a time that fools are most faculty of hating without a provocation. thoughtless and wise men most thought- It is, indeed, most extraordinary, ful. That the discontents which have that a mind like Mr. Southey's, a mind agitated the country during the late richly endowed in many respects by and the present reign, and which, nature, and highly cultivated by study, though not always noisy, are never a mind which has exercised considerwholly dormant, will again break forth able influence on the most enlightened with aggravated symptoms, is almost generation of the most enlightened es certain as that the tides and seasons people that ever existed, should be will follow their appointed course. utterly destitute of the power of disBut in all movements of the human cerning truth from falsehood. mind which tend to great revolutions there is a crisis at which moderate concession may amend, conciliate, and preserve. Happy will it be for England if, at that crisis, her interests be confided to men for whom history has not recorded the long series of human crimes and follics in vain.

SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES. (JAN. 1830.) Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq. LL.D., Poet Laureate. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1829.

Ir would be scarcely possible for a man of Mr. Southey's talents and acquirements to write two volumes so large as those before us, which should be wholly destitute of information and amusement. Yet we do not remember to have read with so little satisfaction any equal quantity of matter, written by any man of real abilities. We have, for some time past, observed with great regret the strange infatuation which leads the Poet Laureate to abandon those departments of literature in which he might excel, and to lecture the public on sciences of which he has

Yet

such is the fact. Government is to Mr. Southey one of the fine arts. He judges of a theory, of a public measure, of a religion or a political party. of a peace or a war, as men judge of a picture or a statue, by the effect produced on his imagination. A chain of associations is to him what a chain of reasoning is to other men; and what he calls his opinions are in fact merely his tastes.

Part of this description might perhaps apply to a much greater man, Mr. Burke. But Mr. Burke assuredly possessed an understanding admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, an understanding stronger than that of any statesman, active or speculative, of the eighteenth century, stronger than every thing, except his own fierce and ungovernable sensibility. Hence he generally chose his side like a fanatic, and defended it like a philosopher. His conduct on the most important occasions of his life, at the time of the impeachment of Hastings for example, and at the time of the French Revolution, seems to have been prompted by those feelings and motives which Mr. Coleridge has so happily described, Stormy pity, and the cherish'd lure

Of pomp, and proud precipitance of soul."

Hindostan, with its vast cities, its arguments himself. He never troubles gorgeous pagodas, its infinite swarms himself to answer the arguments of his of dusky population, its long-descended opponents. It has never occurred to dynasties, its stately etiquette, excited him, that a man ought to be able to in a mind so capacious, so imagina- give some better account of the way in tive, and so susceptible, the most in- which he has arrived at his opinions tense interest. The peculiarities of the than merely that it is his will and pleacostume, of the manners, and of the sure to hold them. It has never oclaws, the very mystery which hung curred to him that there is a difference over the language and origin of the between assertion and demonstration, people, seized his imagination. To that a rumour does not always prove a plead under the ancient arches of fact, that a single fact, when proved, is Westminster Hall, in the name of the hardly foundation enough for a theory, English people, at the bar of the that two contradictory propositions English nobles, for great nations and cannot be undeniable truths, that to kings separated from him by half the beg the question is not the way to settle world, seemed to him the height of it, or that when an objection is raised, human glory. Again, it is not diffi- it ought to be met with something cult to perceive that his hostility to more convincing than "scoundrel" and the French Revolution principally “blockhead.” arose from the vexation which he felt It would be absurd to read the at having all his old political asso- works of such a writer for political inciations disturbed, at seeing the well struction. The utmost that can be known landmarks of states obliterated, expected from any system promulgated and the names and distinctions with by him is that it may be splendid and which the history of Europe had been affecting, that it may suggest sublime filled for ages at once swept away. He and pleasing images. His scheme of felt like an antiquary whose shield had philosophy is a mere day-dream, a been scoured, or a connoisseur who poetical creation, like the Domdaniel found his Titian retouched. But, how- cavern, the Swerga, or Padalon; and ever he came by an opinion, he had indeed it bears no inconsiderable reno sooner got it than he did his best semblance to those gorgeous visions. to make out a legitimate title to it. Like them, it has something of invenHis reason, like a spirit in the service tion, grandeur, and brilliancy. But, of an enchanter, though spell-bound, like them, it is grotesque and extrawas still mighty. It did whatever vagant, and perpetually violates even work his passions and his imagination that conventional probability which might impose. But it did that work, is essential to the effect of works of however arduous, with marvellous dex-art. terity and vigour. His course was not The warmest admirers of Mr. Southey determined by argument; but he could will scarcely, we think, deny that his defend the wildest course by argu- success has almost always borne an ments more plausible than those by inverse proportion to the degree in which common men support opinions which his undertakings have required which they have adopted after the a logical head. His poems, taken in fullest deliberation. Reason has scarcely the mass, stand far higher than his ever displayed, even in those well con-prose works. His official Odes indeed, stituted minds of which she occupies among which the Vision of Judgement the throne, so much power and energy as in the lowest offices of that imperial servitude.

must be classed, are, for the most part, worse than Pyc's and as bad as Cibber's; nor do we think him generally Now in the mind of Mr. Southey happy in short pieces. But his longer reason has no place at all, as either poems, though full of faults, are neverleader or follower, as either sovereign theless very extraordinary productions. or slave. He does not seem to know We doubt greatly whether they will be what an argument is. He never uses | read fifty years hence; but that, if they