just objects of popular odium. This language had the tendency-he did not say that such was the Noble Earl's intention, but his language had the evident tendency-to inflame the passions of the populace, and to incite and encourage outrage and violence. The Noble Earl repeated more than once the words, that he implored them to reflect upon the state to which they would be reduced, if, with a narrow majority, they ventured to withstand the country and the government. Nay, he assumed the character of a prophet, and said, "Set your house in order ;" and although the Noble Earl did not complete the quotation, it was impossible for any man who had read that part of Scripture from which it was borrowed not to regard it as a menace of destruction. The Noble Earl went even further than this. He spoke of certain questions which were then in agitation, and the decision of which might be favourable or unfavourable to the Church, according to their conduct on that occasion. But where were these dangerous questions in agitation? In the high councils of the Sovereign, where the Noble Earl had the lead, or ought to have the lead, for it was to be hoped that he did not delegate his important duties to inferior minds. But wherever such schemes of confiscation were agitated, the Noble Earl could scarcely suppose that they would have any influence over the body to which he belonged. On them it could have no influence, but over the mob such language, proceeding from the first Minister of the Crown, might and naturally would have much. He said, therefore, and he should repeat, that this language, whatever might have been its intention, had the tendency to excite popular odium against the church and the bench of Bishops. It was in substance the same language as they heard in the public streets and read in the public journals, and it fully conveyed the same menaces and threats. They were even told they were bound to support the government. Did not Noble Lords know that, at the period of the Revolution, the Bishops were at once the most zealous and the most effective opponents of the ministers of the crown? They now, for the first time during a long succession of years, were again, upon a particular measure, opposed to the government. And why? Simply because they had now the same rights to exercise and the same duty to fulfil as at the period he had mentioned, to aid in the preservation of the British constitution.'.

Our readers will recollect the context of the passage which Lord Grey selected as full of delicacy and respect for the bishops, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order, FOR THOU SHALT DIE AND NOT LIVE.' 2 Kings, xx. 1; Isaiah, xxxviii. 1.

We will make no odious comparisons as to those who are supposed to quote Scripture for sinister purposes, but we ask Lord Grey, as a man of honour, what he meant by the application of that Scripture phrase, if he did not mean what the phrase means in Scripture-a denunciation of destruction? What he said was either nonsense, or a menace; and it has been so understood, not by the bishops alone, but by Lord Grey's friends and auxilia

ries,

ries, the Press and the Mob. Set your house in order' has been a kind of watch-word against the clergy; and even while we are writing, we find, in one of the best-written and by no means the most violent of the ministerial newspapers, Lord Grey's ominous quotation applied in its true and proper sense, of threatening the downfal of the Church-a catastrophe which the print in question has for years been openly labouring to accomplish. It is high time,' says the Morning Chronicle of this day (the 25th October), that the Church should be compelled to set their house in order.' Lord Grey did not intend, we are willing to believe, to raise a persecution against the bishops, but he has done it. It is the misfortune of men of warm tempers and narrow intellects to be the cause of mischief which they do not foresee, and which they afterwards regret, and, in this case, we hope and believe that the rashness of the rhetorician outran the designs and wishes of the minister !

The result, however, is, that in every public meeting, in all the daily and weekly papers, and in placards upon every wall, we hear and see re-echoed, and reproduced in a thousand shapes, every calumny that ever has been vented or invented against the episcopal bench; and hangings and burnings of their effigies have forcibly repeated the delicate and respectful admonition of Lord Grey, to set their houses in order.'

It is, therefore, not at all surprising that, in attempting to diminish and depreciate the majority in the House of Lords, the ministerial press, even the most moderate part of it, should reject the votes of the bishops altogether, and thus strike off, at one blow, half the majority.

It would be now beside our purpose, and beyond our limits, to enter into an exposition of the injustice-the invasion of all rights-the treason to the constitution-which are involved in the principle of excluding the Bishops from the House of Lords -we shall confine ourselves at present to a few hints of its folly and inconsistency. Is it not strange that those who insist on a restoration of ancient rights, should begin by abrogating one of the most ancient rights of the constitution-that those who stickle for wider representation, should deprive a body so numerous, so wealthy, and so intelligent as the church, of its direct and natural representatives-that those who would pull down the aristocracy, should also attempt to destroy a class of which the greater proportion has always sprung from the people, and has been raised into eminence from humble beginnings, by the talents, learning, and piety of the individuals-that those who for years have clamoured against the subserviency of bishops, should now complain of their independence-and finally, that those who profess such a reverence for the Revolution of 1688, and

the

the general cause of civil and religious liberty, should choose at this moment to forget, that to the bishops-first and foremost in the ranks of moral courage, political independence, and constitutional principles-we have been mainly indebted for those blessings?

The votes of the bishops being thus summarily disposed. of, we are next told by the ministerial anatomists of the majority, that the votes of twenty-seven lay Peers possessing borough influence should be also thrown aside. That, to be sure, would reduce the majority to a minority, Q. E. D.; but before this be done, it would be necessary to prove that borough influence is of so engrossing and overwhelming a nature, that the man who is so unfortunate as to possess it, is incapable of the exercise of a right judgment, or of any honest and independent feeling. Now, granting the correctness of the published lists, is it not a little curious, that on the other side there should have been twenty-six Peers who are possessed of the same kind of borough interest as the twentyseven of the majority? And it appears, also, that one or two of the same class did not vote at all, so that the class is as nearly as possible equally divided in opinion. Is not this curious fact an irrefragable proof, that there is nothing in the mere circumstance of possessing borough influence, which must inevitably and of necessity bias the mind in one exclusive direction? A priori, we confess we should have thought that this species of property could not have failed to operate very forcibly on the opinions of its possessors, but certainly when we see that these persons are equally divided, and that they appear on this occasion to have adhered to the general principles which have guided their political life, and voted according to their party, rather than their property, it is surprising how little influence that species of property seems to have had.

But this admission must not be pushed too far. The ministerial advocates, though manifestly wrong in attributing to borough-property such a paramount and exclusive command over the minds of all its possessors, would have been correct enough in supposing that, quite apart from anything like base and selfish motives, men would look with more complacency to privileges which they had been accustomed to enjoy, and would naturally, in a case of doubt, incline to think that system best for the country, which should also be the most agreeable or convenient to themselves: admitting therefore, for the argument, that there are twenty-seven anti-reform Peers in these circumstances, let us see whether there is not, on the other side, an influence of the same kind, but infinitely more powerful in effect. It does so happen, that by drawing the lines of 2000 and 4000 inhabitants, and by departing from these lines in some special cases, and transferring from Schedule

Schedule A to Schedule B, and from Schedule B back again to Schedule A,-in short, by the mechanism and manipulation (if we may use the expression) of the Bill, the result is, that the elective franchise was preserved to places in which no less than TWENTY of the Peers of the ministerial party are interestedCalne, Tavistock, Malton, Horsham, Morpeth, Richmond, and many others which have made less noise, but which are equally preserved; the present members of which are nominated by twenty noble friends of the Reform Bill! We know that when Mr. Baring and Mr. Croker made a similar observation in the debates of the House of Commons, the Ministers, though they could not deny the fact, repelled the inference by asserting, that the new right of franchise, and the new limits to be assigned to the boroughs thus preserved, would effectually overturn the existing interests. But there are some cases in which, avowedly, that would not have been the case,-Malton and Tavistock, for instance; and we think that, considering the political complexion of the proposed Commission which was to have parcelled out and distributed the franchise, coupled with the admission, made by the First Lord of the Admiralty, that, in one case, the Ministry had deviated from all their rules, for the express purpose of weakening the influence of Tory property in a particular borough,-we think, we say, that under all these circumstances, it is not too much to suppose, that those whose boroughs had been preserved from disfranchisement under such auspices, might also expect, that, under the same auspices, their existing interests might find favour in the eyes of the impartial Commissioners; and if any nomination or half a nomination be preserved, it must be recollected, that as Mr. Baring and Mr. Croker so victoriously proved, its value will be an hundred fold greater than it was. The twenty-seven Whig nominators have now twenty-seven Tory competitors, and the parties in the state are thus fairly balanced, and no man or set of men can dictate to the existing government; but sweep away the mass of nomination seats, and leave fifteen or twenty only in the hands of one set of men-one little knot of oligarchsthe result must be, that these fifteen or twenty seats will exert an enormous influence,-they will afford the only practical means of forming ministries, and of facilitating political arrangements; and the King, instead of looking, as he now might do, to the character and talents of the persons to be summoned to his councils, must consider whether the Duke of Bedford, or Lord Fitzwilliam, or Lord Carlisle will consent to bring the proposed ministers into parliament for Malton, Tavistock, and Morpeth. From all this it follows, that if borough influence be objected to twenty-seven of the majority, there is also a borough influence of infinitely greater value, and involving infinitely

stronger

stronger claims on the gratitude of the intended possessors, which must be imputed to the minority, to the amount of twenty at least. But this is not all. If we are not much deceived, there were several boroughs which, by the operation of the Bill, would have changed hands; and we could name two noble Whigs in the minority who would have been endowed with nominations at the expense of a couple of defrauded Tories. When Lord John Russell was grasping, with so greedy a hand, all the boroughs in Schedule A, yet carefully exempting Tavistock from the operations of the Bill, Sir George Warrender very justly and forcibly said, that his Lordship was but half a Catiline, for that, though alieni appetens, he certainly was not sui profusus.

We have thus, we flatter ourselves, restored the majority to its full effect, even according to the principles and calculations of those who would reckon borough influence, either in possession or prospect, as an incapacity from voting on the late question.

But these calculators have chosen, with characteristic fairness, to omit altogether from their reckoning some other ingredients which contributed no inconsiderable strength to the minority.

Let it be recollected that Lord Grey, in his ten months' • administration, has added twenty-five to the peerage, not selected, as by former ministers, from general considerations of birth, wealth, talents, services, or even of general political conduct, but with an exclusive regard to this one question. It has been asked whether all ministers do not select their political friends for the honour of the peerage? and we have seen statements of the number of peers created by former administrations, as if such assertion and such calculations could have any effect, except upon the most thoughtless or the most ignorant. We, in reply, will venture to assert, that, except in that flagrant, and, until this hour, unparalleled outrage on the constitution, in the reign of Queen Anne, there NEVER has before been a creation of peers for a special and exclusive purpose!

This position we shall make more clear, by one or two examples. For the last thirty years, the great object which divided and engrossed the parties in the state was the Catholic Question. On that several administrations, and every individual minister, had staked their political existence; and we are still flagrant with the marks of the heats and animosities with which that contest was maintained. Yet was there ever, whether the ministry was hostile or favourable to the Catholic claims, any creation of peers in which a pledge on that point was made a sine qua non? The nearest approach to anything of the kind was in the former Whig administration in 1806: it happened, that of a dozen peers created by them, all were, we believe, in favour of emancipation; but we will do them the justice to admit, that this uniformity was probably the

result