NOTES OF THE MONTH. 217 



the Committee of the House of Lords. Thus this great national work, 

 so well calculated at this time to revive the drooping spirit of specula- 

 tion, and to give employment to many thousands of our famishing 

 labouring population, has been thrown back for an entire year, by the 

 intrigues, prejudices, and pride of a few members of the House of Lords. 

 Earl Brownlow, the heir-presumptive to the Countess of Bridgewater, 

 through whose estate of Ashridge the line of the railway is intended to 

 pass, has proved to be the most active opponent of the measure. The 

 report of the committee announced that " the preamble of the Bill had 

 not been proved." We the more regret this termination of the measure 

 for the present session, as a sum of 40,000/., expended in supporting 

 the Bill, is thus virtually lost to the proprietors, and we fear that the 

 various other railway companies will be thrown into gloom at the defeat 

 of the great line to the iron districts of the kingdom. It is certainly a 

 subject of deep regret, that in a country essentially commercial, mea- 

 sures of such decided benefit to every interest of the kingdom mining, 

 agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial should thus be defeated 

 by an inveterate hostility to all human improvement in the Lords, whose 

 wealth is entirely founded upon that national super-eminence in trade 

 which they despise and oppose. We console ourselves, however, in the 

 reflection, that an ample reform in our national establishments is now 

 inevitable, and power having been effectually transferred to the people 

 of England, a continuance of opposition in the Lords to the wants and 

 commercial interests of the nation will, in a very few years, bring on 



THE QUESTION OF AN HEREDITARY PEERAGE. 



" TRICKS OF THE TORIES." The tricks of the Tories are as mani 

 fold as their iniquities ; they pervade alike the court, the camp, and the 

 church ; but in no place are they seen to greater advantage, than in the 

 exhibition of their parliamentary logic at St. Stephen's Chapel. Here 

 we find all sorts of tropes, figures, feints, ruse-de-guerres, with argu- 

 ments ad infinitum of a piece with Jack Cade's, who swore he was heir 

 to the crown by the live bricks in the chimney. But the stock in trade 

 of all these shiftings and cantings, are to be found in a few now some- 

 what obsolete principles. The first of these is legitimacy, or the divine 

 right to govern wrong: authority, backed by the formidable text, 

 " Whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God, and 

 shall receive to themselves damnation." Then we have the passive obe- 

 dience and non-resistance, " Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right 

 cheek, turn to him the other also ; and whosoever will take away thy 

 cloak, let him have thy coat also." To these are tacked, the wisdom of 

 our ancestors, wisdom of ages, venerable antiquities nothing is so vene- 

 rable as an ancient abuse wisdom of old times, and of our forefathers, 

 which is the wisdom of the cradle, rather than that of gray hairs. Then 

 follow the dread of innovation, which always implies a change for the 

 worse, and all the spectres, which would scare white-livered men, as 

 anarchy, revolution, and destruction of church and state. With this is 

 connected the argument of no precedent; and, because our ancestors have 

 not done this, or that,' we have no business, a boy has no right to be 

 wiser than his father. When these fail, we have procrastination such 

 as in law is called a plea of abatement; by which a dishonest dependent 

 will triumph over his injured adversary, by temporizing. Thus, in 

 Parliament, the question of Reform was met, some thirty years ago, by 

 war. " Stop till the peace comes," was tbe cry. Peace came : then it 



