result of general political connexion, and that no pledge was either asked or received from any of the Peers, then created, as to their future votes. It will be said that the division of opinion in former cabinets prevented exclusive favour to either side: this was generally true; but there were moments in which the cabinet was all but unanimous on that subject; for instance, under Lord Liverpool at the coronation of George IV., and under Mr. Canning during his short administration; but in neither case did it ever enter into the head of the premier to attempt to influence the state of that question by creation, still less would either of those premiers have dreamed of attempting to carry the question by such means. But there is a case still more important and almost in point :-it is now known, that in 1828 the Duke of Wellington was meditating the project of Catholic emancipation, and well knew that his greatest difficulty would be in the House of Lords; yet so far was his Grace from attempting anything like what the present Ministers have already perpetrated by wholesale, that of the Peers created in 1828, there was, we believe, a majority of persons opposed to Catholic concession. The conduct, therefore, of the present Ministers, which no precedent could have justified, has not only no colour from any precedent (except the black one of Queen Anne), but is contradicted and reprobated by the practice of all other administrations, as distinctly as by the principles of the constitution.

The result of this violation of decency is, that twenty-five new Peers have been created, so notoriously pledged to the Reform Bill, that some of them had actually voted for it in the Commons, and had thus the-honour, shall we call it ?-of voting in both Houses; and we have heard of two or three others, whose private opinions were originally adverse to reform, who, nevertheless, were persuaded to vote in the ministerial minority. It must further be observed, that in addition to these twenty-five new peerages, there have been six promotions in the peerage. There are also to be found in the minority the names of thirty-five peers who hold cabinet, household, or diplomatic offices. Three or four have had extra ribbons created for them contemporaneously with their votes,—an unlucky coincidence, it must be confessed, if there was no other connexion between the votes and the ribbons. We think it would be unfair to look beyond what appears publicly on the face of the Court Calendar or the Gazette; and we therefore set no store by the rumours of promises of future favours, which have been confidently quoted; nor do we think it would be just to endeavour to trace influence through the collateral channels of family connexions, though even these, no doubt, may have some effect. But we think we may fairly add to the list of the peers likely to be influenced in favour of the Bill by considerations distinct from its

intrinsic

intrinsic merits, the noble parents of three Cabinet Ministers, and of the Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests.

These several classes amount to

Peers whose borough influence is preserved

New Peers

Peers promoted

Office bearers

Extra ribbons

Grandfather and fathers of Ministers

20

25

6

35

3

4

93

We beg our readers to observe that we offer these views not offensively, but defensively. Lists have been published, falsely attributing to the majority personal views and official obligations; we, as a set-off, reply, that if such influences and obligations are to be reckoned at all, truth requires that they should be attributed to the minority;- but more of this by and by; at present we will only add, that when to this great number of the minority, who appear to be thus directly interested in the suc cess of the ministerial measure, we add the numbers in whose opinion the King's name is a tower of strength,' it will, we think, be admitted, that the majority was as considerable by its numbers, as it is respected for its talents, and honoured for its integrity.

Indeed, one very important advantage has accrued to the House of Peers out of these debates,-even the Radical writers themselves have been struck with the ability, we may say, the superior ability, with which the question has been treated by their lordships. The vulgar and so long exploded error of imputing to the hereditary house an inferiority in talents or acquirements, had begun to manifest itself again, and some wiseacres had gravely asked us, with a sneer at hereditary legislators, what we should think of hereditary professors in colleges, or hereditary physicians in cities? All such sneers the Lords have again triumphantly refuted. Even Mr. Cobbett, whom we quote as an evidence rather than an authority, distinctly says:

The debate was throughout distinguished by infinitely greater talent than had been displayed upon the same subject in the other house. Everything that could be said against the bill was said against it by the opposing Lords; on the part of the Ministers the debate was conducted in a very laudable and able manner.'-Pol. Reg., 15th Oct.

In fact, the whole course of these debates in both Houses leads to very important considerations as to the comparative value of elections merely popular, and those in which, as under our present system, there is a due mixture of other ingredients, such as birth, rank, riches, education, intelligence. The present

House

House of Commons is the most popular that was ever elected, yet, even in the opinion of the reformers themselves, it has shown itself at least not superior in vigour of intellect—the quality which it might have been expected more especially to possess -to the House of Lords; and even within its own walls, that class, against which the Reform Bill seemed substantially directed, is undeniably that which, on both sides of the question, has distinguished itself by the greatest abilities. The sons and grandsons of peers, and the members for the nomination, or alleged nomination, boroughs of Aldborough, Boroughbridge, Calne, Okehampton, Sudbury, Tamworth, Thetford, Weymouth, &c., have infinitely surpassed, in every intellectual qualification and merit, the crowd of members whom the late ebullition of popular feeling had raised-not into eminence indeed-but to the opportunity of obtaining eminence, had they been equal to the crisis in which they were placed. Upon this consideration we will not dilate, as it might lead to mere personal comparisons, which we are willing to avoid; but we believe that it has not been lost on the public, and that the people of the empire at large are, at this hour, better satisfied with those that have been called only their virtual representatives in the House of Commons, and those who may justly be called their hereditary representatives in the House of Lords, than with those who have been sent into public life by the more immediate and direct exercise of the popular choice.

While the debate in the House of Lords was going on, a meeting was held at Birmingham-we kuow not whether it professed itself to be the Birmingham Political Union or not, but its chairman, at least, is the chairman of the Birmingham Union, and we believe it is the same body: this meeting voted an address to Lords Althorp and John Russell, expressing the approbation of the assembly, consisting of 150,000 persons, of their conduct on the Reform Bill; and adding some violent resolutions as to the non-payment of taxes if the Bill should be lost. To this address Lord Althorp made an answer, much more civil than we think such menacing resolutions were entitled to,— yet still in a certain tone of moderation, unaccompanied by any insult to the House of Lords, or any countenance of the anarchical resolutions: but his answer, which in other times would have been justly censured as deficient in the dignity and reserve with which a person in his situation should receive even the complimentary part of such an address, looks like a model of propriety and moderation by the side of what Lord John Russell thought proper to say. We give it as we find it in the public papers:—

• Lord

Lord John Russell to Mr. Thomas Altwood, Birmingham.

I beg to acknowledge, with heartfelt gratitude, the undeserved honour done me by one hundred and fifty thousand of my countrymen. Our prospects are now obscured for a moment, and I trust only for a moment. It is impossible that the WHISPER of a FACTION should prevail against the voice of a nation.'

That the King's Minister should not, even while returning thanks for a personal compliment-of which Lord John may be so shortsighted as not to detect the worthlessness-that he should not have expressed some dissent from the illegal and treasonable doctrines with which the compliment was accompanied, is sufficiently surprising; but that, though a serious dereliction of duty, is venial when compared with his characterizing the exercise of the undoubted and constitutional right of the second branch of the legislature as the whisper of a FACTION;'-the phrase in itself is as awkward and poor as its meaning seems to us indecent and dangerous. The opposition to the Reform Bill, forsooth, has been a 'whisper'-a pretty audible whisper-expressed in one parliament so distinctly as to induce the Ministers to dissolve it: and in the new House of Commons we should have thought that, from the beginning of June to the end of September, on every day in every week, and every hour in every day, they had heard something more than a whisper'-the whispers, indeed, of Sir Charles Wetherell, of Mr. Croker, of Sir Robert Peel!-the whispers of Lords Carnarvon and Harrowby, and the Duke of Wellington! The whisper, too, of a Faction!' We should be glad to have explained to us the tenets and objects of the faction which unites in one house Sir Robert Peel with Sir Charles Wetherell; Mr. Baring with Mr. Croker; Lord Chandos with Lord Porchester; and in the other, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Eldon; Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Tenterden; Lord Carnarvon and Lord Harrowby. Except a conscientious and disinterested opposition to a revolutionary reform, is there any motive-any hope-any object which can be suspected of having pervaded all these gentlemen? and by what political dictionary is the concurrence in a speculative opinion of persons who never before concurred, who probably never may concur again, and who certainly never expected to reap any personal advantage from their concurrence, to be defined a faction? A whispering faction,' composed of men who probably never met to discuss the subject except in their respective houses of parliament; and who there spoke, trumpet-tongued, their unconcerted and hardly-accordant sentiments on this single object: a whispering faction!'-why, the thundering legion' would have been an infinitely more appropriate term! But, awkward and puerile as the antithesis may be, the meaning seemed but too clear; namely, that the majority of one of the

estates

estates of the realm is a faction, and their decision the result of a mean and selfish intrigue. However, Lord John Russell, when arraigned in his place in Parliament for so high an offence as this seemed to all mankind to be, tells all mankind that they are mistaken, and do not understand the English tongue. We extract this extraordinary defence from the least suspicious authority-the Times newspaper :

'Lord John Russell said, that as so pointed a call had been made upon him to explain in what sense he applied the expression which had given the honourable gentleman so much uneasiness, he did not hesitate to state that he had not contemplated the majority of the Lords in the phrase so often referred to. The other House had undoubtedly as good a right to reject the Bill as they themselves had to agree to it, and he was far from disputing that they were perfectly entitled to vote which way they thought proper. But there might be factions in Parliament notwithstanding, which looked to their own interests and promoted their own ends by opposing the Reform Bill; and he would also add, that the conduct of certain gentlemen in opposition on General Gascoyne's motion, fully illustrated the truth of the assertion. Honourable and learned gentlemen had likewise talked pretty often of the wicked and profligate designs of Ministers in introducing this late measure of reform; and it appeared to him that he might, with equal fairness, make use of a word so common in the English language as faction.

Now, really, without having any great respect for Lord John Russell's understanding, we could not have expected such poor subterfuge and word-catching as is here attributed to him. He did not mean the majority of the House of Lords,'-'but there might be factions in Parliament;' and 'General Gascoyne's motion illustrated the truth of the assertion!' Not mean the House of Lords!Look when the letter was written on Saturday, the 8th October, the very day on the morning of which the Lords divided. Not mean the House of Lords!-Look at the contemporaneous letter of his colleague, Lord Althorp-he manfully, at least, and plainly says, 'The large majority by which the Bill has been lost in the House of Lords is, I fear, a serious calamity. It can only, however, postpone the success of our cause.' Lord John Russell, writing at the same hour to the same person, on the same subject, and with the same feelings, says, 'Our prospects are now obscured for a moment, and I trust only for a moment. It is impossible that the whisper of a faction can prevail against the voice of a nation.' And yet the reporter of the Times is not ashamed to put into the mouth of a British Minister-of an English Gentleman, a solemn denial that he alluded to the majority in the House of Lords,' although that Minister's noble colleague, writing at the same hour, to the same person, on the same subject, and with

6

the