new connexions grown up which you must again destroy, new influence acquired which you must dispossess of its authority, and that in these fruitless attempts at unattainable purity you were working against the natural current of human nature.

I believe, therefore, that, contrive how you will, some such humble motives of action will find room to operate in the election of members of Parliament. I think that it must and ought to be so, unless you mean to exclude from the concerns of the nation all inert wealth, all inactive talent, the retired, the aged, and the infirm, all who cannot face popular assemblies or engage in busy life; in short, unless you have found some expedient for disarming property of influence, without (what I hope we are not yet ripe for) the abolition of property itself.

I would have by choice-if the choice were yet to be made-I would have in the House of Commons great variety of interests, and I would have them find their way there by a great variety of rights of election; satisfied that uniformity of election would produce any thing but a just representation of various interests. As to the close boroughs, I know that through them have found their way into the House of Commons men whose talents have been an honour to their kind, and whose names are interwoven with the history of their country. I cannot think that system altogether vicious which has produced such fruits. I cannot think that there should be but one road into that assembly, or that no man should be presumed fit for the deliberations of a senate, who has not had the nerves previously to face the storms of the hustings.

I need not say, Gentlemen, that I am one of the last men to disparage the utility and dignity of popular elections. I have good cause to speak of them in far different language.But, among numberless other considerations which endear to me the favours which I have received at your hands, I confess it is one, that as your representative I am enabled to speak my genuine sentiments on this (as I think it) vital question of Parliamentary Reform, without the imputation of shrinking from popular canvass, or of seeking shelter for myself in that

species of representation which, as an element in the composition of Parliament, I never shall cease to defend.

In truth, Gentlemen, though the question of Reform is made the pretext of those persons, who have vexed the country for some months, I verily believe that there are very few even of them who either give credit to their own exaggerations, or care much about the improvements which they recommend. Why, do we not see that the most violent of the Reformers of the day are aiming at seats in that assembly, which, according to their own theories, they should have left to wallow in its own pollution, discountenanced and unredeemed? It is true, that if they had found their way there, they might have endeavoured to bring us to a sense of our misdeeds, and to urge us to redeem our character by some self-condemning ordinance; but would not the authority of their names, as our associates, have more than counterbalanced the force of their eloquence as our Reformers.

But, Gentlemen, I am for the whole constitution. The liberty of the subject as much depends on the maintenance of the constitutional preroga tives of the Crown, on the acknowledgment of the legitimate power of the other House of Parliament, as it does in upholding that supreme power (for such it is in one sense of the word, though not in that of the Revolution of 1648,) the power of the purse which resides in the democratical branch of the constitution. Whatever beyond its just proportion was gained by one part, would be gained at the expense of the whole; and the balance is now, perhaps, as nearly poised as human wisdom can adjust it. I fear to touch that balance, the disturbance of which must bring confusion on the nation.

Gentlemen, I trust there are few, very few, reasonable and enlightened men ready to lend themselves to projects of confusion. But I confess I very much wish, that all who are not ready to do so would consider the ill effect of any countenance given, publicly or by apparent implication, to those whom, in their heart and judg ments, they despise. I remember that most excellent and able man, Mr Wilberforce, once saying in the House of Commons, that he "never believed an opposition really to wish mischief

to the country; that they only wished just so much mischief as might drive their opponents out, and place themselves in their room." Now, Gentlemen, I cannot help thinking, that there are some persons tampering with the question of Reform something in the same spirit. They do not go so far as the Reformers; they even state irreconcileable differences; but to a certain extent they agree and even cooperate with them. They co-operate with them in inflaming the public feeling not only against the Government, but against the support given by Parliament to that Government, in the hope, no doubt, of attracting to themselves the popularity which is lost to their opponents, and thus being enabled to correct and retrieve the errors of a displaced administration. Vain and hopeless task, to raise such a spirit and then to govern it! They may stimulate the steeds into fury, till the chariot is hurried to the brink of a precipice; but do they flatter themselves that they can then leap in, and, hurling the incompetent driver from his seat, check the reins just in time to turn from the precipice and

avoid the fall? I fear they would attempt it in vain. The impulse once given, may be too impetuous to be controlled, and intending only to change the guidance of the machine, they may hurry it and themselves to irretrievable destruction.

May every man who has a stake in the country, whether from situation, from character, from wealth, from his family, and from the hopes of his children,-may every man who has a sense of the blessings for which he is indebted to the form of Government under which he lives, see that the time is come at which his decision must be taken, and, when once taken, stedfastly acted upon-for or against the institutions of the British Monarchy. The time is come at which there is but that line of demarkation. On which side of that line we, Gentlemen, shall range ourselves, our choice has long ago been made. In acting upon that our common choice with my best efforts and exertions, I shall at once, faithfully represent your sentiments and satisfy my own judgment and conscience.

MB EDITOR,

FROM the neutral position which I have ventured to assume, not as between conflicting principles (on which no man ought to be neuter) but as between contending factions, allow me to pursue a little farther the line I have adopted of reflection on the conduct of both. A distinguished political writer describes in a few words the situation of men who, in a state distracted by party divisions, refuse to go all lengths with those to whom they generally adhere. "Ceci m'est arrivé plus d'une fois dans ma vie. Des hommes avec lesquels j'avois fait alliance parcequ'ils avoient raison, ont cru que j'etais engagé par cette alliance à les soutenir même quand ils avoient tort. Le cas n'est pas rare en politique. Pendant quelque tems les sages et les insensés marchent ensemble. Il vient au moment où les insensés, s'elancent et crient à l'abandon quand on ne les suit pas. Les sages continuent leur route sans s'inquiéter."There is an air of modest humility in this passage, which you will doubtless

remark, and which I nevertheless feel unwilling to pass by without directing your attention to it, were it only for the purpose of shewing you that it has not escaped mine. The author does not expressly say that he is himself the wise man, par excellence," who alone pursues his path without caring, while all the rest of the party, which he has hitherto thought worthy of that denomination, are suddenly transformed into fools and madmen, exclaiming against him for having deserted them. He only leaves this conclusion to be necessarily inferred from the premises; and yet, after all, it is the conclusion at which every man who expresses an opinion differing from others must expect his hearers to arrive-for, otherwise, of what value is his opinion? If he thinks himself wrong, it is not his opinion which he expresses. If right, it follows of necessity that he must think the others wrong-in plainer words, that to the extent at least of the present question, he alone is "le sage" the rest-" les fous" and "les insensés"-civil words, no doubt, but

still very properly expressions of his true meaning. Thus, it is rather a false modesty that leaves to be raised by implication, a construction which necessarily follows from every man's declaring that such, or such, is his particular opinion. Still, in the present refined state of society, it is far better that hard words should be avoided in every discussion; and therefore it is to be regretted that the writer above quoted did not add to the humility for which he is so conspicuous, a little forbearance, and substitute some milder epithets, by which to characterise the fault of those who choose to proceed farther than he does in the road to which he had, up to a certain point, journeyed with them. Of all shapes in which intemperance of thought or language displays itself, the most odious is that which it assumes when employed by men to whom the world (whether justly or unjustly) will always affix the stigma of political apostacy, when it hears them reviling and insulting their for mer partizans and associates. I entertain all possible indulgence for any honest change of opinions, and all possible respect for the honest account of such change; but the very consciousness of being subject to such mutability, ought to make all men cautious and moderate in their expressions regarding the opinions of others; and more especially, those who are not only theoretically but experimentally acquainted with this infirmity of human nature. Of the various gradations, therefore, of criminality, to which the vice of exaggeration is subject, the highest and most enormous is the exaggeration of renegades and apostates-which terms, in their popular sense, I take to include all men who have publicly altered their political creed, or separated themselves from their political associates. Next to that in flagitiousness, is the exaggeration of men in power, which I consider as incomparably less excuseable than that of Whigs and Reformers; both as it is more mischievous in its effects, and as there is less temptation to the commission of it. The party in power, when once firmly seated, have the command of innumerable engines, and methods of self-support, infinitely more efficient than the abuse and misrepresentation of their less fortunate rivals; besides, that to the fair and well-judging part of the community,

that very abuse and misrepresentation are instruments of no potency in their hands when opposed to similar weapons in the grasp of their antagonists. The world, which looks upon the parties in and out of place with the same eyes that it contemplates two prizefighters on a stage, feels naturally indignant when that which, in point of situation, has a great and overwhelming advantage, condescends, in adclition, to resort to the same instruments of annoyance which the other employs as his only means of defence and resistance. It is like a combat between two swordsmen, of whom one is cased in complete armour, while the other is naked. But I have a stronger objection to urge against this method of ministerial warfare. In the hands of opposition, exaggeration and mis-statement, ridicule and calumny, are so far the recognised instruments of party purposes as to have lost at least half their effect, even with the multitude; and no man-I will not say no man of sense only-but nobody whatevernow thinks the worse of a minister's talents because the Edinburgh Review calls him incapable, or more highly of his opponents because the same journal represents that certain improvements in political knowledge, which are open to all the world, have by some unaccountable fatality remained as exclusively their own property as if they had been sealed up, and the use of them prohibited to every one else. But it is otherwise, when these same engines of fraud and contrivance are employed under the broad imposing cover of official or semi-official gravity. The Whig, bespattered with government dirt, becomes at once, in the eyes of half the world, the identical monster they would represent him to be; and as, unfortunately, there now exists a third party in the state, incomparably inore dangerous and more hostile to the existence of both Whigs and Tories, than either of those can be to the other; and who are restrained, by no one scruple of honour or policy, by no one motive which can actuate the mind of a gentleman, and by no one principle that is seated in the breast of a patriot, by whom the old and regular opposition, so long as they retain the smallest portion of popular favour or esteem, are beyond all comparison more hated than the warmest and most violent among the supporters of government, the consequence is, that,

thus assailed on both sides, they must, as a political party, soon cease to have any being; and that with their fall, the old and well tried balance of the constitution will be destroyed, and the liberties of the nation delivered over, bound and fettered, to all the extremities which the prevalence of despotism or anarchy may inflict upon them. I am quite convinced that this deplorable crisis is not to be averted on the part of the Whigs, by the weak compromise of a single constitutional principle in the way of concession to popular clamour and insolence; and I am equally certain, that it must be incalculably accelerated by the system of abuse and recrimination so diligent ly pursued by the government writers against the remnant of a party, which, though politically opposed, is essentially united to them by one common interest against their more formidable and radical opponents. It is by

measures of concession to and conciliation with all those of every class and mode of opinion to whom the ark of the constitution is yet properly the object of veneration and care, and not by the proud and uncompromising spirit of injustice, which would confound all shades and diversities of doubt and dissent in one indiscriminate charge of rebellion, that the state is now to be defended against the attacks of those who are openly pledged and sworn to its subversion; and it is well said by the author whom I have before cited, with feelings very different from those of entire approbation, "Les amis aveugles des mesures violentes tombent sans cesse dans la même erreur. C'est au despotisme qu'ils demandent la reparation des maux que le despotisme a causés. Quand un état est prêt a peri faute de liberté, ils appellent à leur secours plus de servitude encore, et c'est par un accroissement d'arbitraire qu'ils croient apaiser le besoin des garantiés. Mais le pouvoir absolu n'est pas comme la lance d' Achille-il ne guerit point les blessures qu'il a faites-il les envenime et les rend incurables."

Now, if there is any truth in this observation, (and I think that every day's political experience more and more tends to confirm it,) how does it apply to the habit of perpetual a buse and altercation to which the public is condemned to listen, in the form of sound argument and fair dis

cussion, between the contending parties which we denominate, (for want of more proper terms of distinction) Whig and Tory? Let us first calmly consider what is the actual situation of the country, and then, if we can persuade ourselves that it is really such as to leave those who have its interests at heart, sufficient leisure to devote themselves to this war of words, and that they can devote themselves to it securely, there is no more to be said. But, if higher and more iminediate duties not only require their attention, but are of such a nature as to demand it entirely, what true Englishman will persist for a moment longer in the useless, the more than useless, exercise? The nation is no longer divided between Whig and Tory, or between Churchman and Dissenter, or between Protestant and Catholic; but between those of all parties who acknowledge an interest, and who claim a right, in the preservation of the commonwealth, and those whose only aim, secret or open, is to destroy it. It is impossible that any man, whether he be Whig or Tory, can be so blinded by the bigotry of faction, as not to be internally convinced, that it is as much the desire and the object of those of the contrary party, as it is his own, to defend the real interests of the state against the enemies who are leagued together for its overthrow. Then why any longer stoop to employ that false and execrable jargon, the sole tendency of which, is to confound the proudest and best established distinctions, and by levelling the barriers of truth, to expose the constitution, unarmed and naked, to every shaft which is aimed at its existence? Let me ask,-setting aside all motives of prudence and true political wisdomwhether, in common justice between man and man, the Whigs are strictly chargeable as a body, with all the warm and intemperate expressions, with all the extravagant doctrines or principles, to which the fury of the moment may have given birth in certain individuals of the party, any more than these whose profession is that of attachment to the existing government, are deserving of having imputed to them, in the mass, the exploded chimera of the divine right of kings, or the more dangerous notion of the perfection of absolute monarchy, upon which many of their too

zealous partizans appear ready to act, although they do not venture openly to profess them? But, if the false imputation of matters of opinion be justly reprehensible, how much more unpardonable is that of interested motives, and corrupt designs and intentions? How, after the experience of the last twenty or thirty years, it can still be asserted, by any person having the smallest pretension to truth or common honesty, (what, nevertheless we find unblushingly repeated in every page of every government journal, and often broadly insinuated, if not distinctly promulgated as the true political creed, from every quarter of the Treasury Bench), that the sole object of the party in opposition, is to dispossess their rivals, and bring themselves into place and power, and how an assertion, so self-evidently false, and almost ridiculous, can actually obtain credit, and pass current, with threefourths of the nation, is, I think, among the most inexplicable phenomena of modern politics. Yet the mischief of such a persuasion is as extensive as its absurdity should seem to be palpable. Great as the preponderance of the government scale now is, and long has been in the opinions of the country at large, yet the time is not quite arrived (and I hope to God it never will arrive-) for reposing a blind and unlimited confidence in any ministry, however popular and however virtuous. With all the prevailing bias in favour of the present ministers, the people still require (and long may they continue to demand-) the constitutional check and security of a regular opposition. But, if that necessary and honourable part of our state establishment, whose legitimate office it is to watch the conduct of ministers, to weigh and investigate, and (for the purpose of their being the more scrupulously weighed and investigated) even frequently to oppose and impede, their minutest proceedings,if the regular and constitutional opposition be vilified and calumniated, their principles misrepresented, and their intentions falsified, what is the self-evident and immediate consequence? What?-but to throw the

unreflecting part of the nation-of that nation which will not consent to become the mere blind tools and simple adherents of even the best administration-upon the hollow and dangerous protection offered them by a set of unprincipled adventurers against both the conflicting parties, making no scruple to bespatter them equally with the dirt which each, in its blindness, imagined to be safely employed as the instrument of attack upon the other? A general election is the fittest of all seasons to call forth in every breast which retains the smallest regard to truth and moderation of sentiment, observations of the nature of these which I have now addressed to you. On the more zealous and determined adherents of either party, I can have little hope that they are calculated to produce any effect; but if they should tend to preserve one candid and liberal mind from being merged in that vortex of faction, which threatens to swallow up all that remains of true honesty and sobriety in the nation, I shall be satisfied to bear all the rest of my life, the reproach which Mr Hobhouse (not with much apparent justice or felicity,) the other day bestowed upon his less popular rival at Covent-Garden, and be classed, together with him, among those

"Vile neutrals, who in caution's middle steering,

Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring."

The "Golden Mean," which we were taught to venerate in our nurseries-the "Aurea Mediocritas," of which we read at school, and which was inculcated by Horace as the best standard to regulate the lives and actions of more than school-boys, has, since the new light of modern philosophy has visited us, (deservedly, I suppose,) been exploded and rejected. Yet," in the golden days of good Queen Bess," it was still regarded as the golden rule of practice; and the most moral poet of that glorious age has, in his most moral and divine poem, devoted one entire canto to the celebration of it. I am, Sir, yours, &c. METRODORUS.