long, and irresistible; and the applause of the Jacobin mob drowned in the indignation of all the virtuous part of mankind.

Even if it were true, as the conservative party maintain, that the whole distractions and anarchy of the country are owing to the prodidigious and unnecessary addition which the government proposed to make to the political power of the lower class of householders, still that would only remove the difficulty a step farther back. For the question remains, how has it happened that twelve men were to be found in Great Britain of sufficient rank, talents, and character, to construct a cabinet, who would engage in a scheme of innovation so impetuous, and in the destruction of institutions sanctified by so long a train of recollections? That some of the Ministers are most able men, is evident from their speeches: that many of them are amiable and good men, we can testify from personal intercourse: that most of them are possessed of great fortune is universally known: that they are all gentlemen is certain: that some of them are of old and dignified families, is evident from the classic names of Russell and Spencer which they bear. How, then, has it happened that a cabinet composed of such men should have launched out in so astonishing a manner upon the sea of innovation: that they should have engaged in measures which history will class, in point of rashness, with the visions of Mirabeau, and, in point of peril, with the conspiracy of Catiline that they should have been blinded alike to the lessons of history, the dictates of wisdom, and the results of experience: that they should have forgotten equally all that the sages of ancient wisdom had bequeathed, and all that the tears of modern suffering had taught: that they should have implicitly followed the footsteps of the French innovators, and periled their lives and their estates, in a course which had brought their miserable forerunners to an untimely

end?

This will appear still more extraordinary, if the principles and writings of these men themselves, who have urged on these disastrous measures, in early life, is taken into con

sideration. Such is the weight of the argument against them, that it will admit of almost any concession, and derives confirmation from the most vehement writings in favour of freedom prior to the fall of the Duke of Wellington's administration. No more emphatic condemnation of the Reform Bill is to be found than in the sayings of Mr Fox in 1797, or the speech of Earl Grey in 1817: non more profound exposition of the principles of the conservative party u than in the History of Sir James Mackintosh, or the Whig writings of Mr Hallam. We have never yet heard the Lord Chancellor refute the masterly sketches of Henry Brougham on this subject: we have looked in vain to the Lord Advocate for an answer to the arguments sc long and powerfully urged by Fran cis Jeffrey: we have listened in vain in the speeches of the noble mover of the bill, for a reply to the observations of Lord John Russell on the constitution. So rapid, so fatally rapid, has been the progress of revo-" lutionary ideas, since this firebrand was thrown into the bosom of the nation, that the conservative party require now to refer to no other authority but the arguments and principles of the authors of the bill a few years back, and they, in their turn, are driven to the doctrines of the Jacobin and revolutionary party, whom their abilities, till they came into office, were successfully exerted. in refuting.

This moral phenomenon will appear still more extraordinary when the character of the people among whom this tempest has arisen is taken into consideration. -" It is a remarkable fact," says Turgot, "that" while England is the country in the world where the freedom of the press has existed for the longest time, and where discussion on public affairs has gone on for centuries in the most fearless manner, it is at the same time the country in which the people have the greatest reverence for antiquity, and are most obstinately attached to old institutions. I could alter fashions, laws, or ideas, ten times in a despotic monarchy, for once that they could be moved in the popular realm of England."The observation is perfectly just, and has been exemplified by the history