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a majority of the Commons and the nation, it will afford matter for profound meditation, and open up new views as to the destiny of Europe and the government of the world.

The moralist who attends to the influence of excessive prosperity upon the individual character; who has observed how it corrupts a once noble nature, generates guilty passions, and induces deserved misfortune, will perhaps be inclined to consider this very prosperity as the cause of the disasters which followed. He will observe, that longcontinued success renders nations, as well as individuals, blind to the causes from which it has flowed; that the advantages of present situation are forgotten in the blessings by which it has been attended, and the miseries of change disregarded by those who have never experienced them. the individual, ruined by excess of enjoyment, is allowed to taste the bitterness of adversity, and learn, in the wretchedness of want, the magnitude of the blessings which he has thrown away; so nations, corrupted by a long tide of prosperity, are allowed to plunge into years of suffering, and regain, amidst the hardships of a distracted, that wisdom which they had lost under the blessings of a beneficent government.

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The religious observer, who is impressed with the reality of the moral government of the world; who recollects how this Island has been preserved, like the Ark of old, amidst the floods of revolution-what an extraordinary combination of circumstances was required for its deliverance, and how little would have sunk it for ever in the waves; who remembers the fate of the Apostate Julian, and compares it with the recent catastrophe of Napoleon; who has seen all these blessings forgottenall the principles which led to them abandoned-all gratitude for them extinguished; who has witnessed the spread of revolutionary ambition among so many millions of our people, and sighed over the march of infidel fanaticism; who reflects on the corruption of the higher, and the profligacy of the lower orders; who has seen British enthusiasm applaud the convulsion which tore down the cross from every steeple in Paris, and effaced the image of our Saviour from all its churches; who beholds all that is sacred or venerable in our institutions assailed by an

infuriated multitude, and the bulk of the nation calmly awaiting the work of destruction; who recollects that we have conquered in the sign of the cross, and perceives how any allusion to religion is now received in the Legislature -will probably conclude that Heaven has withdrawn its protection from those who were unworthy of it; and that, in return for such signal ingratitude and marked dereliction of duty, we are delivered over to the fury of our own passions.

The historian, who has reflected on the rise, progress, and decay of nations-who has observed how invariably a limit is put to the extension of empires, when the destined purposes of their existence have been fulfilled-who recollects that it is the progressive which is the comfortable, and the stationary which is the melancholy, condition of mankind-who surveys the magnitude of our empire, embracing every quarter of the globe, and the density of our population, not yet allowed to find a vent in those immense possessions-who looks back on the majestic career of British greatness, and considers what our people have done for the advancement of knowledge, the extension of civilisation, and the increase of happiness, will perhaps arrive at the melancholy conclusion, that that line of splendour is about to terminate; that the sun which has for so many ages illuminated the world is sinking in the west, and that a long night of suffering must precede the aurora of another hemisphere.

It is the strength of the arguments which have been so often adduced, and are so utterly disregarded by the majority of the people, which confirms us in these melancholy presages. If the matter were at all doubtful-if, as on the Catholic question, important arguments could be urged on both sides, and facts in history appealed to in confirmation of either view, there could be no reason to despair of the commonwealth, because the opposite side to that which we had espoused proved successful. But when the overwhelming strength of the arguments on one side is contrasted with the overwhelming mass of proselytes on the other when recent equally with ancient experience warns us of our fate-when the slightest acquaintance with history, as well as the smallest observation of the present times,

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lead to the same conclusion-when thought, and talent, and information have been so strenuously exerted in the cause of order, and yet all is unavailing-the conclusion is unavoidable, that we have arrived at one of those eras in human affairs, when a universal passion seizes mankind, and, for purposes at the time inscrutable to human wisdom, reason generally gives way to frenzy.

The circumstances which render the present Reform utterly fatal to every interest of society, and totally inconsistent with the durability of the empire, are its being based on a uniform system of representation; the overwhelming preponderance which it gives to numbers over property; the undue majority which it confers on the inhabitants of towns over those of the country; and the total absence of any means of representation for our colonial possessions.

Uniformity of representation, beautiful in theory, is the fatal rock on which all theoretical constitutions have hitherto split; and, to the end of time, must render them unfit for the government of mankind. The French established one uniform system of representation in 1790, by which every man worth three days' labour had a vote. It was speedily merged in the Reign of Terror. Taught by this dear-bought experiment, they established, on the fall of Robespierre, a representative system founded on a much higher qualification, and guarded by the protection of a double set of electors. It was terminated in five years by the sword of Napoleon. The constitution of Louis XVIII. conferred the right of voting upon all persons paying 300 francs a-year of direct taxes; and the public discontents under it went on accumulating, till, to resist immediate destruction, Charles X. was driven to the hazardous expedient of abolishing the right of representation in one half of the electors—an act of violence which immediately led to his overthrow. All the other nations who have attempted the formation of similar constitutions have done the same, and all these constitutions are already extinct.

Such similarity of effects cannot be ascribed to chance. It springs necessarily from the fatal principle of uniformity in representation; because that uniformity necessarily excludes a great proportion of the nation from the legis

lature. The electors, composed-or, what is the same thing, for the most part composed-of a certain class in society, cannot sympathise with other bodies; they are careless as to their complaints, indifferent to their welfare, swayed probably by an adverse interest; and the inevitable consequence is, that the ejected classes become discontented, and public dissatisfaction goes on accumulating, till it terminates in a convulsion.

Nothing but the great inequality in the representation has so long preserved the British constitution from this catastrophe. It is of no importance in whom the right of voting is vested: if, however, it is placed in any one class exclusively, the constitution must be of ephemeral duration. Had it been exclusively vested in the peers or the greater landholders, the increasing discontents and expanding ambition of the middle orders must long ago have overturned the Government. Had it been vested in the forty-shilling freeholders, their indifference to the wants of the manufacturing and commercial classes would have led to a similar result. Had it been confined to the nomination boroughs, British freedom would have been crushed in the grasp of the aristocracy. Had it been everywhere extended to the potwallopers, that freedom would have been torn in pieces by the madness of the democracy. It is the combination of all these powers in the formation of the representation, which has so long preserved entire the fabric of the constitution, because it has given to each interest a direct and immediate access to the legislature, without being indebted for it to the tolerance or indulgence of the other classes. The nobility place their younger sons in the House by means of the nomination boroughs, and rest in peace, satisfied that they will be at their posts to defend the interests of the higher classes of society. The merchants sway the votes of the smaller boroughs in which they possess an ascendency, and find their way into Parliament through the influence of commercial wealth. Colonial opulence purchases its share of the nomination boroughs; and, entering at what is called the gate of corruption, defends the interests of millions of our distant subjects. The agricultural class return the county members; and the Radicals, triumphant in the great towns, are satisfied with their victory, and return

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an adequate share of the whole representation. Nothing but this unequal, heterogeneous, and varied representation could so long have held together the varied and conflicting interests of the British empire.

No human wisdom could have framed such a system. Its utility could not have been anticipated, a priori. Its irregularity would have displeased a theoretical statesman. It is just for this reason that it has been so durable, because it was not formed on abstract principle, but on practical experience; because each class which required a share in the representation, has, in the lapse of time, discovered an inlet which conferred it; and the fabric, moulded into the requisite form by the wants of successive generations, has afforded shelter and accommodation to its numerous and varied inmates.

It is evident, however, that, under such a system, one class might become preponderating; the aristocracy might have usurped the share of the people, or the people might have overthrown the necessary authority of the aristocracy. It is the complaint of the Reformers that the former has been the case; that a majority of the House is returned by the nominees of individuals whose interest is adverse to that of the rest of the empire. Let us consider whether this is the

case.

The proof of the aristocracy being too powerful in the legislature, is of course to be found in the measures it adopts, and the tendency of the elections which create it. If the House of Commons has of late years been inclined to abridge the liberty of the subject, increase the privileges of the aristocracy, crush the freedom of the press, then it is manifest that the aristocratic class has become too powerful in the legislature. If the result of elections has been to increase this tendency; if with every successive Parliament a fresh addition is made to the already overwhelming influence of the great families; then it is plain, that the system of representation does not afford an adequate check against the danger, and that a change in the mode of election-in other words, a Parliamentary Reform, is necessary.

But if the reverse of all this has been the case; if the influence of the aristocracy has been sensibly and evidently

VOL. I.

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