low him. As a witness to facts, never was failure more complete. The Bill, said he, has no friends anywhere; and he mentioned Bond-street as one of his walks, where he could not enter a shop without finding its enemies abound. No sooner had Bond-street escaped his lips than up comes a petition to your Lordships from nearly all its shopkeepers, affirming that their sentiments have been misrepresented, for they are all champions of the Bill. My noble friend then says, "Oh, I did not mean the shopkeepers of Bond-street in particular; I might have said any other street, as St. James's equally." No sooner does that unfortunate declaration get abroad, than the shopkeepers of St. James's-street are up in arms, and forth comes a petition similar to that from Bondstreet. My noble friend is descried moving through Regent-street, and away scamper all the inhabitants, fancying that he is in quest of Anti-Reformers-sign a requisition to the churchwardens and the householders, one and all, declare themselves friendly to the Bill. Whither shall he go-what street shall he enter, in what alley shall he take refuge-since the inhabitants of every street, and lane, and alley, feel it necessary, in self-defence, to become signers and petitioners, as soon as he makes his appearance among them? If harassed by Reformers on land, my noble friend goes down to the water, the thousand Reformers greet him, whose petition* I this day presented to your Lordships. If he were to get into a hackney-coach, the very coachmen and their attendants would feel it their duty to assemble and petition. Wherever there is a street, an alley, a passage, nay, a river, a wherry, or a hackney coach, these, because inhabited, become forbidden and tabooed to my noble

friend. I may meet him not on "the accustomed hill," for Hay-hill, though short, has some houses on its slope, but on the south side of Berkeley-square, wandering "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,"for there he finds a street without a single inhabitant, and therefore without a single friend of the Bill. If, in despair, he shall flee from the town to seek the solitude of the country, still will he be pursued by cries of "Petition, petition! The Bill, the Bill!" His flight will be through villages placarded with "The Bill"-his repose at inns holden by landlords who will present him with the Bill-he will be served by Reformers in the guise of waiters-pay tribute at gates where petitions lie for signing and plunge into his own domains to be overwhelmed with the Sheffield petition, signed by 10,400 friends of the Bill.

" Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair ?
Which way I fly, Reform-myself Reform!"

for this is the most serious part of the whole,-my noble friend is himself, after all, a Reformer. I mention this to show that he is not more a safe guide on matters of opinion than on matters of fact. He is a Reformer-he is not even a bit-by-bit Reformer -not even a gradual Reformer-but that which at any other time than the present would be called a wholesale, and even a Radical Reformer. He deems that no shadowy unsubstantial Reform, that nothing but an effectual remedy of acknowledged abuses, will satisfy the people of England and Scotland; and this is a fact to which I entreat the earnest and unremitting attention of every man who wishes to know what guides are safe to follow on this subject. Many now follow men who say that Reform is necessary, and yet object to this Bill as being too large; that is, too efficient. This may be very incorrect; but it is worse;

it is mixed up with a gross delusion, which can never deceive the country; for I will now say, once for all, that every one argument which has been urged by those leaders is as good against moderate Reform as it is against this Bill. Not a single reason they give, not a topic they handle, not an illustration they resort to, not a figure of speech they use, not even a flower they fling about, that does not prove or illustrate the position of "No Reform." All their speeches, from beginning to end, are railing against the smallest as against the greatest change, and yet all the while they call themselves Reformers! Are they then safe guides for any man who is prepared to allow any Reform, however moderate, of any abuse, however glaring?

Of another noble Earl, whose arguments, well selected and ably put, were yet received with such exaggerated admiration by his friends as plainly showed how pressing were their demands for a tolerable defender, we have heard it said, again and again, that no answer whatever has been given to his speech. I am sure I mean no disrespect to that noble Earl, when I venture to remark the infinite superiority in all things, but especially in argument, of such speeches as those of the noble Marquist and the noble Viscount. The former, in his most masterly answer, left but little of the speech for any other antagonist to destroy. The latter, while he charmed us with the fine eloquence that pervaded his discourse, and fixed our thoughts by the wisdom and depth of reflection that informed it, won all hearers by his candour and sincerity. Little, indeed, have they left for me to demolish; yet if any thing remain, it may be as well we should take it to pieces. But I am first considering the noble Earl in the light of one professing to be a

Lord Harrowby. + Marquis Lansdowne.

Viscount Melbourne.

a safe guide for your Lordships. What then are his claims to the praise of calmness and impartiality? For the constant cry against the Government is, "You are hasty, rash, intemperate men. You know not what you do; your adversaries are the true State physicians; look at their considerate deportment; imitate their solemn caution." This is the sort of " See

thing we hear in private as well as public. such an one, he is a man of prudence, and a discreet (the olden times called such a sad) man; he is not averse to all innovation, but dislikes precipitancy; he is calm; just to all sides alike; never gives a hasty opinion; a safe one to follow; look how he votes." I have done this on the present occasion; and, understanding the noble Earl might be the sort of personage intended, I have watched him. Common consistency was of course to be at all events expected in this safe model-some connexion between the premises and conclusion, the speech and the vote. I listened to the speech, and also, with many others, expected that an avowal of all, or nearly all, the principles of the Bill would have ended in a vote for the second reading, which might suffer the Committee to discuss its details, the only subject of controversy with the noble Earl. But no such thing; he is a Reformer, and approves the principle, objecting to the details, and, therefore, he votes against it in the lump, details, principle and all. But soon after his own speech closed he interrupted another, that of my noble and learned friend,* to give us a marvellous sample of calm and impartial judgment. What do you think of the cool head-the unruffled temperthe unbiassed mind of that man-most candid and most acute as he is, when not under the domination

Lord Plunkett.

of alarm-who could listen without even a gesture of disapprobation to the speech of one noble Lord,* professedly not extemporaneous, for he, with becoming though unnecessary modesty, disclaims the faculty of speaking off-hand, but elaborately prepared, in answer to a member of the other House, and in further answer to a quarto volume, published by him-silent and unmoved, could hear another speech, made up of extracts from the House of Commons' debates-could listen and make no sign when a noble Marquist referred to the House of Commons' speeches of my noble friend by his House of Commons' name, again and again calling him Charles Grey, without even the prefix of Mr.; nay, could himself repeatedly comment upon those very speeches of the other House-what will your Lordships say of the fatal effects of present fear, in warping and distorting a naturally just mind, when you find this same noble Earl interrupt the Chancellor of Ireland, because he most regularly, most orderly, referred to the public conduct of a Right Honourable Baronet, exhibited in a former Parliament, and now become a matter of history? Surely, surely, nothing more is wanted to show that all the rashness-all the heedlessness-all the unreflecting precipitancy, is not to be found upon the right hand of the woolsack; and that they who have hurried across the sea, in breathless impatience, to throw out the Bill, might probably, had they been at home, and allowed themselves time for sober reflection, have been found among the friends of a measure which they now so acrimoniously oppose! So much for the qualifications of the noble Lords, to act safely as our guides, according to the general view of the question as one of mere authority, taken by my noble friend.

* Lord Mansfield. + Marquis Londonderry. ‡ Sir R. Peel. § Lord Dudley. VOL. II.

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