preserved. If the monarch is victorious, either by the force of arms or by the influence of corruption, a despotism is immediately established. If the people become omnipotent, the transition is equally certain, though by a more painful and agonising passage, to absolute power. Democracy, unrestrained by aristocracy, never yet subsisted for any length of time in any old state upon earth; the evils it induces are so excessive, the suffering which flows from it so dreadful, that mankind soon become weary of their contentions, and willingly submit to any usurper who promises, by concentrating power in a single hand, to save them from "the worst of tyrannies, the tyranny of a multitude of tyrants."*

But what is the stroke which is now levelled by the reforming party at the independence and the privileges of this estate, so vital to the existence of public freedom? If they had marched, like Napoleon, a company of grenadiers into the Hall of the Ancients; or, like Cromwell, with rude contumely, turned the Commons out of their seats, history would have known in what terms to designate their conduct. They do not propose to do so; they pursue a more peaceable and covert course; but in what respect does its result differ from an open destruction of their order? They have not marched in thirty grenadiers with fixed bayonets; but they are urged to march in sixty Peers with fixed votes, which must overwhelm the decision of that assembly just as effectually as the rougher hands of warlike assailants. It is quite evident that the third estate of the realm will by such a measure be completely prostrated by the two others, and the balance of the constitution irrevocably destroyed, by the union of the Crown with the power it was destined to repress.

It is in vain to say that the constitutional remedy for obstinacy in the Upper House is a new creation of Peers. If so, where are the precedents on which the consuetudinary practice is founded? With the exception of the solitary act of Queen Anne, no creation of Peers to carry a particular question ever took place since the union of the Heptarchy. This is the important point. The Reformers, with their usual historical inaccuracy, argue that a great number of

*Aristotle.

Peers have been created since 1763 by the Tory party, and therefore that they are justified in this creation, to force through this particular measure. They might as well pretend that, because there is nothing wrong in troops exercising with fixed bayonets in Hyde Park, therefore there can be no objection to their marching with fixed bayonets into the Chapel of St Stephen's: or, because it is lawful to discharge a loaded pistol in an open field, therefore it is noways blamable to fire it off at the breast of a human being. The error does not lie in the exercise of the power, but in its exercise for that particular purpose; not in discharging the gun, but in discharging it at a living

creature.

Mr Pitt never created a single Peer to carry through a particular measure; his creations were merely general, to reward the merit of illustrious individuals, or elevate persons of great property to their proper rank in the state. If these individuals were numerous, it was because, under the administration of the Conservative party, great actions were common abroad, noble characters were frequent at home, and extensive wealth often rewarded the protected exertions of industry. What a contrast do these creations afford to those proposed in the present time, made, not to reward naval or military glory; not to illustrate civil distinction ; not to ennoble commercial greatness; but to overwhelm free discussion, to extinguish independent thought, to reward democratic ambition! The old Barons of England won their coronets in the embattled field; their titles date from Cressy and Poictiers, from Falkirk and Azincour the more modern Peers draw their descent from equally glorious deeds-from the field of Blenheim, the fight of Camperdown, the glories of the Nile, the flag of Trafalgar, the rout of Vitoria, the conquest of Waterloo. In civil greatness, equally honourable have been the fountains of the Conservative nobility; the administration of Chatham, the wisdom of Loughborough, the eloquence of Mansfield, the vigour of Hardwicke, the learning of Eldon, the power of Thurlow, the energy of Grenville. of Grenville. Who envies the really illustrious of the Whig party a similar elevation? Who would grudge Baron Brougham and Vaux his coronet; or any of the other Whig leaders their titles for national services which

will survive themselves? But what a contrast to these glorious titles do the creations now proposed afford! Done not to reward merit, not to illustrate distinction, not to perpetuate honour; but to enable a particular party to remain in power at the expense of the constitution; to sink the illustrious House, of which they are the youngest members, and form, not the ensigns of past glory, but the harbinger of future disaster!

The enormous number of Peers whom the present Administration have created since they came into power, is another most serious consideration. If to the former creation of twenty-five we add thirty now proposed to be added, we shall have fifty-five Peers created in thirteen months, all avowedly to carry a particular question. The Conservative party have been in power, with two short intermissions, from 1763 to 1830, or sixty-seven years. If they had created as many Peers annually as the present Ministers have done, and are said to be about to do, the Upper House would now have consisted of above four thousand members! In other words, that single branch of the Legislature would have engrossed all the persons of wealth, consideration, or respectability, in the country, leaving none to the House of Commons but furious demagogues, or energetic popular leaders the very circumstance which Lord Brougham has so well shown was the cause of the precipitate and fatal career of the French Constituent Assembly.*

But

Nor does it in the least alter the character of the measure, that a large proportion of the new Peers, it is said, will be the eldest sons of existing Barons, who will, in the course of nature, at all events succeed to the Upper House. That may be an important point to the Peers themselves, who naturally feel desirous that their order should not be degraded by the introduction of improper members. to the country at large, this consideration, though by no means unimportant, is not the most serious matter. The great wound which the constitution has received, is that which arises from the decision of one branch of the Legislature being overturned by the royal prerogative; in other words, the establishment of a precedent, which at any time enables the Executive, by whomsoever wielded, to break

* Edinburgh Review, vol. vi. Review of Bailly.

down the opposition of one of the constituent branches of the Legislature. From that wound, fatal to public freedom, the constitution never can recover, and it is called for by the friends of the people.

Whenever, during the Revolution," says Chateaubriand, "an act of injustice was to be done, it was urged forward with breathless haste, and necessity was alleged for its adoption; whenever an act of justice was to be performed, it was said that delay was expedient." How exactly similar is the revolutionary career in all ages and countries! Where is the necessity for advancing so rapidly? Did not the Catholic Bill pass the Peers from the alleged force of reason at last, though for long it was rejected? Is the cause of Reform so utterly untenable that it will not bear argument, and must dwindle away and perish if it is long considered? Is the maxim, magna est veritas et prævalebit, applicable universally save to the Reform Bill? The truth cannot be eluded; it is pressed by this violent stretch of the Executive, because its authors know the universal application of this maxim, and feel that, if not now forced on, the country will inevitably awaken to the real tendency of the measure.

The constitution has subsisted so long, and general liberty has been so admirably preserved under it, because, as Paley has observed in the passage quoted above, the Crown has, in all serious contests with the popular party, taken part with the Upper House; and how great soever the democratic spirit of the Commons has occasionally been, it was effectually coerced by the united weight of the Barons and the Executive; in other words, by the ruling power and the great properties of the state. If a creation of Peers be adopted, the constitution will be mortally wounded, because a coalition against its existence has taken place of a kind which never has been anticipated, and for which, accordingly, no provision has been made-viz. the coalition of the Executive with the democratic party. It was obvious to every capacity that, if such a combination of powers took place, it would be extremely doubtful whether the aristocracy could maintain their ground against it; because the Crown, wielding the military and naval force of the realm, and possessing the unlimited power of creating

Peers, and the Commons having the sole command of the public purse, stood opposed merely to an assembly of dignified and opulent landed proprietors. But such an alliance was deemed impossible by all the sages and philosophers of the last age, because it was directly contrary to the interests and existence of the contracting parties; and, therefore, they never contemplated any such peril to the constitution. It was reserved for the modern Reformers to realise what Montesquieu, De Lolme, and Blackstone deemed impossible; and to pierce the constitution to the heart by a blow so reckless and perilous, that it never was thought possible that men could be found to

strike it.

England, to all appearance, is about to enter upon the career of degrading the Peerage, and destroying its independence as a branch of the Legislature; and is there no example of what such a course leads to? Does no voice issue from the sepulchral vaults of a neighbouring kingdom, to warn us of the measure which proved fatal to its institutions? Alas! the hand of God seems to press upon our country; darkness, thick as midnight, darkness that "may be felt," to blind our people: the examples not merely of history, but of the present moment, are lost upon our rulers! At the very moment that the Crown of England is violently urged to embark on this perilous stream, the Crown of France is shaking on the head of him who wears it; while the new patents for the creation of English Peers are making out on one side of the Channel, the hereditary nobility is extinguished on the other. What has led

to this overthrow of the French constitution-to this departure from all the principles of European civilisation-to this demolition of the bulwark of modern freedom, and near approach of the greatest civilised monarchy to the barbarism and the anarchy of Turkish despotism? The fatal union of the Crown and the populace; the ruinous precipitance, forty years ago, of a reforming Administration; the placing the Executive at the head of the revolutionary movement; the repeated overwhelming of independent deliberations by the creation of Peers to carry particular questions, and the erection of a revolutionary throne on the foundation of the barricades. Sixty Peers were created