588 Notes on the Month on [MAY 



Admitting that the experiment may be a successful one, and that the 

 Bishop of London and my Lord Harrowby will act. up to the letter of their 

 declarations, still it is rather difficult to induce the people at large, who 

 know the temper and tenderness of the House of Lords as well as Lord 

 Grey himself, to place their faith in its practicability ; and, therefore, it 

 would be wiser in his Lordship to make assurance doubly sure, and allay 

 the irritated and impatient feeling of the country, than to stand upon 

 a point of honour with a House that has been " swamped" often enough 

 for its own purposes, without murmuring, or feeling its dignity in the 

 smallest degree diminished by an increase of its numbers. One thing, at 

 least, is certain, that when we look dispassionately, and without any 

 leaven of anger or prejudice, upon some of the recent exhibitions that 

 have occurred there, it would be much more difficult to lessen its respec- 

 tability as a body, than to add to it. A vein of youthful and more modern 

 sentiment and feeling infused into the House, by even a small creation of 

 liberal Peers, judiciously selected, might raise the hereditary branch of the 

 legislature a step higher in public opinion than it now stands ; but a 

 second rejection of the Bill, or what, in fact, would be still more 

 degrading to the Lords, a mutilation of its principles, would hardly sink 

 it a step lower. Toryism, like treason, has done its worst *' nothing, 

 nothing can touch us further." 



This, however, may, with justice be said of the Lords that they de- 

 bated the matter with infinitely more rhetorical ability than the Commons j 

 though it must at the same time be owned, they were far from being des- 

 titute of their Sugdens and Sibthorpes, their Gordons and their Goul- 

 burns. In the four nights' debate, there were, perhaps, four very able, 

 and one or two admirable speeches ; containing, as might have been 

 expected, nothing very novel in the way of argument, but much that was 

 pointed in the way of personal attack, and energetic peroration. It was 

 scarcely to be supposed that any thing absolutely new could be said on 

 either side ; but the old objections were reiterated with imperturbable seri- 

 ousness of style, and the old refutations were urged in reply, with as much 

 praiseworthy fervour as if they were really worth answering. Lord Grey 

 took the lead, particularly in his closing speech, on the enlightened side. 

 The Right Reverend Dr. Philpotts (if we apply such terms to a man who 

 is seldom right, and never reverend) led the way on the blind side -, and 

 the Earl of Harrowby was the champion of the one-eyed squadron, better 

 known by the designation of the Waverers. But the question, who took 

 the lead in tafent, however important it may be to the speakers, has at 

 this moment no interest for the public mind. The people have no eyes or 

 ears but for events : the age of words is gone by. 



The hour is at hand, when the grand question, as far as regards the 

 present bill, must be brought to a decision. That it will pass through the 

 furnace of the committee unscathed, we do not indulge a hope 5 that the 

 rate of qualification will be regarded as sacred, that the metropolitan clause 

 will be held inviolable, by the Falmouths and the Mansfields, the Carnar- 

 vons and the Ellenboroughs, the Londonderrys and the Wellingtons, we 

 cannot for an instant prevail upon ourselves to believe. Still we do not 

 ;$ay to the people, or to their unreformed representatives, reject the bill 

 rather than receive it in an abridged and mutilated form. Our motto is, 

 take what they will give ; be it what it may, it will place us on a vantage 

 ground, where" we can demand what we now sue for. Were the bill >.- 



