the session, in those of its close we see every reason to hope that the perils which menaced our ancient constitution, have in a great degree passed away, and that the returning good sense of the representatives of the people, and far more of the people themselves, will preserve that mixed form of government which has so long secured the liberties, and fostered the happiness of this great nation. It is not our intention at present to review at any length the proceedings of the session: we have not space for a commentary which, to be instructive, should not be brief. At present we must only beg the attention of our readers to the course of conduct pursued by the ministry and by each house of parliament, with reference to those subjects upon which the much talked-of and much dreaded collision was to take place; we mean the Municipal Corporations and the Irish Church. When the Corporation Reform Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, we took occasion to lay before our readers our opinions as to its provisions. It will, perhaps, be recollected, that to its principle we gave our fullest assent, while at the same time we endeavoured to point out the evil of many of its provisions. The great principles of popular election and popular control we were most auxious to see carried into effect in the new municipal arrangement. Upon this basis alone we were persuaded that corporations could be framed so as to give satisfaction to the people; but, at the same time, we were desirous that the development of these principles should be attended with such practical precautions as might be calculated to secure good government for corporate towns. It was asserted, and not without reason, that abuses existed under the old system; it needed little to prove that the natural tendency of self-elected bodies is to such abuses; but, at the same time, we felt that giving power to the populace does not necessarily insure its proper exercise that it sometimes may be necessary not to follow a multitude to do evil-and that it needed something more than the mere throwing of power into the hands of the lower orders, to secure either the impartial administration of justice or the honest application of public property. The bill, as introduced into the lower house, made the extension of democratic power its chief object. In common with the great majority of the thinking people of the empire, we desired that this should be subordinate to another and a more reasonable object-the securing of good government in the towns. We believe and trust that the bill, as it has become law, will conduce to the happiness of the people. It certainly is much more likely to do so than in the state in which it was originally introduced. The amendments of the Lords have been almost all improvements; and those points which they finally conceded, they were perhaps wrong in ever urging. The retaining the rights of existing aldermen was a project which they very properly abandoned. We are not quite so sure about the provision which gave townclerks a life interest in their offices. We have very great apprehensions as to making any functionaries dependant upon the will of democratic communities. Abstractedly we think the arrangement of the Lords was better, but this was a point which it well became their lordships to concede. Our readers are aware that the bill in its original shape took away the elective rights of freemen-rights which they held by a tenure solemnly guaranteed to them by the reform bill-that bill which was so often declared to be the final settlement of the franchise. This wholesale and iniquitous confiscation of the vested rights of the poor, was attempted without the shadow of excuse. And anxious as we are now to omit saying anything harsh of the originators of the bill, we cannot help declaring that the fraudulent secresy with which the confiscating clause was introduced into this bill, casts an indelible stain upon the character of those who contrived it. They meditated injustice, and they must needs do it surreptitiously— they attempted in fact to delude the parliament, and smuggle in an enactment, of which the effect might escape observation-they added the baseness of cowardice to the guilt of spoliation; they attempted to accomplish gross injustice by a pitiful manoeuvre; they thus left the memento of their own condemnation, and they confessed by the very intrigue they employed, that they were conscious of the iniquity of their design. Thanks, however, to the carefulness of Sir William Follet, their plot was detected-thanks to the firm ness of the peers, it was defeated. Our readers may recollect our entering our protest against the provision of the bill which left to town councils, of whom the majority might belong to any of the multitudinous forms of dissent, the power of appointing to the livings which have been hitherto in the gift of the corporations. We certainly did think it just as unreasonable that Unitarians, and Johanna Southcotians, should have a voice in the nomination of our clergy, as we would to find a bishop of our church claiming the right to appoint the minister of a seceding chapel. The remedy which we suggested was to take away from the corporations the right of presentation, and give it to the bishops. By this arrangement no one would have been injured-the old corporators lose the property under any circumstances, the new ones never possessed it. The House of Lords limited the right of voting upon such questions to members of the Established Church. Lord John Russell declared, we believe, that this was a reenacting of the penal laws, or made some declaration equally absurd; and the matter was compromised by inserting a clause compelling corporations to sell their advowsons, and apply the proceeds to the purposes of the borough fund. The enforcing of a qualification for town councillors is a most important point; this is a subject upon which we wish to say a few words-for we cannot but protest against the spirit of the qualification which Lord Lyndhurst originally proposed. It was, that the councillors should be elected from one sixth of the vote-payers who paid the highest vote. Now, with all respect for the noble and learned lord, we feel bound to declare, that in this provision there was insinuated a principle to which we trust the people of England never will agree that relative wealth is the test of relative respectability. It is very right and fair to say that there is a certain standard of property, the possession of which you require as a security before you admit a man into an office of trust; but it is quite another, and very different, to establish, that this standard shall be a relative one; and that the citizens who have most money, are to be deemed the most trustworthy. The one is but the adoption of a necessary precaution against paupers; the other is giving an unjust, an ungrounded, and an invidious preference to the rich. This provision was, however, very properly abandoned on the suggestion of the Earl of Devon-who has been lately raised from a clerk at the table to a peer; and whose talents and judgment do honor to his station-and the qualification has been finally settled at the possession of 1000, or the being rated at 301. in the larger boroughs; and 5007., or being rated at 151. in the smaller. While we thus feel ourselves bound to draw the plain and marked distinction between the very just principle which requires the possession of some property, as a qualification for office; and the invidious and dangerous principle, which would establish wealth as the criterion of the relative fitness of individuals for office-we yet feel persuaded that it was from no wish to adopt the latter, that Lord Lyndhurst shaped his amendment in its original form. We cannot but feel for the personal and political character of that noble lord the deepest respect for his talents there is not, we believe, one educated person in the empire, who does not entertain the highest admiration. Unquestionably the first statesman-almost the first lawyer in the House of Lords-he occupies at this moment a position which any man might envy-and his conduct with regard to the bill we are discussing, has tended to raise him still higher in public estimation. Divesting his mind of all party bias, and forgetful of party interests, he exhibited in his conduct no less honesty than judgment. Never, perhaps, was there more true principle-more legislative wisdom-more firmness unmixed with obstinacy-more conciliation without bordering on compromise, exhibited by any body of men, than by the House of Lords in their management of the Corporation Reform Bill-and to Lord Lyndhurst belongs the proud distinction of having been the guide and adviser of their conduct. Let the proceedings of the peers be carefully reviewed from the hour when the bill was first brought up from the Commons, to that in which it finally received the royal assent-and the history of those proceedings will present to the reHlecting mind a splendid example of proud patriotism, and pure principle acting under the direction of the soundest judgment, and the most equable temper. All prejudice appeared to have been cast aside-all party interests forgotten--equity seemed the only guide of their conduct--and the consciousness of rectitude of purpose, imparted to all their proceedings that calin and resolute dignity before which the insolent petulance of ministers and their supporters soon shrank powerless and rebuked. Contrasted with Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Melbourne certainly appeared in a very unfavorable light. His obstinate and most preposterous opposition to the hearing of evidence at the bar of the House-his indecorous warmth his foolish menaces to the House of consequences which have not followed-the utter ignorance which he manifested as to the details of the bill which he was so intemperately supporting-and his often repeated warnings to the peers, of the effects which their conduct would producewarnings which with some strange infatuation he continued up to the very moment that proved their silliness; all combined to make the premier seem personally as contemptible as it is possible for any man holding his office to be. While the desertion of all the great leading Whig Lords, who left him night after night to divide the house, and find himself still in the same miserable minority of placemen and ministerial dependants, rendered the degradation of his situation more complete. To a proud man we can conceive no mortification more bitter than that which Lord Melbourne must have experienced in being compelled to recede from pretensions so lofty as those with which he set out, to concessions so humiliating as those with which he concluded. The truth is, that Lord Melbourne attempted to play the game of Lord Grey-he attempted to browbeat the Lords as his predecessor had done VOL. VI. upon the reform bill-and, as might be expected, his attempt was a nise rable failure. He forgot, it is true, that the English people who had been against the Lords upon the former oc casion, were with them now-but he still more forgot that he was not Lord Grev. We have said that we augur well from the events of this session for the safety of the constitution. The Lords have nobly asserted their independence as a branch of the legislature; and the Commons and the ministers have reluctantly yielded to them. Every effort was made to put in motion the old machinery of popular excitement; the government papers teemed with the most violent and inflammatory tirades; the premier threatened in the House of Lordsthe ministerial leaders swaggered in the House of Commons; official franks were sent down covering despatches to get up an agitation. Revolution was the cry-the supplies were to be stopped-the House of Peers voted a nuisance, unless they surrendered all the interests of the country to the uncontrolled directions of the O'Connell faction in the House of Commons but the Peers were firm-they did their duty, and all went on as usualthe supplies were voted-the country acquiesced-the ministers truckled, and even the radicals of the lower House, with some grumbling and some violent abuse, yielded to the House of Lords, and acknowledged their undoubted right to exercise their own free and independent judgment. This much then has been accomplished-we have got rid of the bugbear of collision-this formidable something will never again "frighten the isle from its propriety"-the collision has come, and it has passed away without any other result than this, that the House of Commons have yielded to the House of Lords. We believe that this yielding was gall and wormwood to the ministersbut they were forced to it, and for the sake of office they submitted-they commenced with bullying, but they found it would not do-they changed their tone-the ministerial press no longer talked of coercing the House of Lords-the language now was for peace the provisions that they had declared 2 L most essential to their measure were destroyed-but they yielded and they kept their place, and the new profession of ministerial faith was thus made by Lord John Russell : "Sir, I know that with respect to any great measure of this kind, it is not possible in a mixed constitution like ours to carry into effect at once all those reforms which one may think necessary. If you have a government either of absolute monarchy or totally democratic, you may press measures such as they have been originally framed and introduced. Many years ago the King of Prussia issued an edict by which all corporate officers were to be elected by the householders. His Majesty had no difficulty in carrying that measure. In the same way, if our government was wholly a popular one, we should have little difficulty in carrying into effect any measures we might think proper to introduce. WE LIVE UNDER A TEMPERED GOVERN MENT, AND MUST WISH TO SEE ALL REFORMS CARRIED INTO EFFECT CON SISTENTLY WITH OUR CONSTITUTION AS IT AT PRESENT EXISTS. If we endeavour to obtain the advantages of such a tempered government, and no doubt they are great and many, we must yield something to the opinions of other branches of the legislatureif we endeavour to carry every measure through unchanged and unmutilated, we cannot obtain it without subjecting every thing to obstacle and delay (hear, hear.) This is one of the consequences of the mixed government under which we live; and, on the contrary, if we are prepared to abandon that form of government, we may perhaps run into the other extreme." Were it not that we remember that there was a time when this same noble Lord was the eulogist of Gatton and Old Sarum, we would begin to think that we might calculate him among the Conservative party in the state; but we have had experience enough of Whigs to know that when men have no principle, their professions are not to be depended on. This much, then, we may consider as a principle settled by the acknowledgment of all parties, that the House of Lords is an independent branch of the legislature, and as such its members are entitled to deliberate upon any measure that is presented to them, and to exercise their discretion-subject only to that responsibility from which no human legislation is exempt, a responsibility to him "from whom all power is derived." The absurdity of converting the House of Lords into a registering chamber for the decrees of the Commons, has been abandoned, and the very lowest and most profligate radicals of the Lower House-the Humes, the Wakleys, and the O'Con nells, were compelled-with a bad grace, it is true-but still they were compelled to acquiesce in the rights and privileges which the constitution has conferred upon the Peers. There was a little blustering which we can well forgive, and a little vulgar insolence, which we might well expect, but the concession was made; and when we recollect the swaggering menace by which it was preceded, we need not wonder if the soreness of humiliation made men angry--when we recollect who the men were, we cannot be surprised if their anger found its expression in low scurrility and indecent vituperation. We confess that it would give us pleasure to believe that this recognition of the rights of the Lords proceeded, on the part of ministers, from principle. We would fain believe that there are some, even in the Melbourne cabinet, who have a respect for the ancient constitution of the country, and who would maintain the principles of that constitution, and it may have been the councils of these men that prevailed, and prevented their more desperate colleagues from placing themselves in the frantic attitude of leaders of the democracy against the constitution. But the conduct and language of others, leaves no doubt as to their feelings. The violence of the ministerial leaders in both houses, plainly proves, that they have recognised the constitution, because they dare not do otherwise-they cared for no principle, but they dreaded the good sense of the people of England-they bullied as long as they could, and they truckled when they could do nothing else. Such conduct, to say the least of it, was foolish. Common policy might have suggested to them, that if they found themselves compelled to submit, they might, at least, adopt such a tone as would leave it in doubt whether their submission was the result of principle or necessity. Nothing can be more contemptible than the insolence of the caitiff who is abusive even while he submits. To concede may be humiliation, but to concede with a bad temper is to make it a disgrace-it is to confess your inferiority, and at the same time to proclaim how sorely it galls you. No folly is greater than to employ the language of vituperation towards them to whom you yield-it is at once a confession of your weakness, and a display of your malignity the one without the merit of candour, and the other without the excuse of an object. Even the quaintness of the old proverb censures the folly of the dog who "shows his teeth when he cannot bite; no combination can be more lowering than the bully in the act of conceding, because there is no union we despise so much as that of impotence and rage. The Irish Corporation Reform Bill has been rejected-for the present we are spared the infliction of the magistracy which it would have established in all our corporate towns. We shall not for this year, at least, see the "criminal usurping the place of the judge," and the felon on the magisterial bench, deciding on the case of his less guilty brother felon at the bar. The other measure upon which we were threatened with a collision, was the Irish Church Bill-upon this measure we have already recorded our opinion; but upon the state of the question, as regards Lords and Commons we desire to say a few words. The ministers framed a bill, in which they united two measures, as unconnected as it was possible for any two measures to be the one for settling the collection of church property, the other for appropriating its revenues; they knew the distress in which their own wicked policy had plunged the clergy, and they attempt now to avail themselves of that distress, to force upon the Lords their measure of spoliation; the Lords rejected all those clauses of the bill which enacted that the revenues of the Irish Church should be taken away-they passed those clauses which contained the provisions by which ministers had themselves arranged, that church property might be realised; but ministers getin a passion-they say, you must take these two measures, or you shall have neither-you must consent to the robbery of the church, or we will leave the clergy in destitution for another year; and that their designs might not by any possibility be mistaken, Lord Brougham, whose responsibility renders him a convenient mouthpiece, expressly employs this menace unrebuked by ministers, and, we regret to add, even by the opposition. Now, such conduct appears to us to be a fouler iniquity than any that ever disgraced the annals of despotismand, we care not who reads our declaration, when we say, that the minister who would dare to employ, or to sanction such a threat-who would presume thus to ally himself with the lawless proceedings of violence—and to make the enforcement of the just rights of any class of men dependent upon the compliance of the legislature with his will has assumed an arbitrary power to which Britons never ought to submit-has set himself and his faction above the law, and has made an open and atrocious attack upon the constitution and liberties of his country. Earnestly do we beg the attention of Britons, we care not to what party they belong, to the principles contained in this menace. We call upon those who honestly favoured the Irish Church Bill, as well as upon those who opposed it, seriously to reflect upon the power assumed by the minister, when he attempts thus to coerce the House of Lords. The clergy are now by law entitled to their tithes, just as much entitled as any man in the empire is to his property. A wicked and illegal conspiracy has withheld from them their just rights; will Lord Melbourne deny that it is illegal? We will point to the gaols that but a little while ago were filled with those whom his ministry persecuted as partners in that conspiracy-and now he says, "My enforcement of the law will be contingent on every thing going on as I choose-let my will be disobeyed, and the clergy shall not have their just rights; I have here a band of Irish insurgents ready to deprive them of their property, and deprived they shall be, unless parliament do as I please." We will suppose Lord Mel |