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THE ELECTIONS. 



THE elections naturally occupy the public mind to an immeasurable 

 degree of greater earnestness than on any similar occasion within the 

 memory of the existing generation. Never were the energies of mi- 

 nistry or opposition more intensely put in action for the invigoration 

 of their respective parties. Never was the spacious talent of the 

 press more splendidly developed on either side of public feeling : it 

 has manifested all the powers of eloquence and reason, every art of 

 sophistry ; it has enforced the strength of prejudice and preposses- 

 sion. Its extensive speculations, its acute inquiry, its illustrative de- 

 tails, combine a mass of knowledge, argument, and ingenuity, which 

 forms an aera in political literature. The temper of the contest, 

 whether on the hustings or in the polemic columns of the journals, 

 are not degraded by those coarse asperities which entered into almost 

 every controversy that, of old, confronted right with privilege when 

 nomination superseded popular opinion, and public spirit was in- 

 sulted by the patents of a venal treasury. With vehemence enough 

 to mark sincerity, the personal and intellectual struggle of antagonists 

 has shown a sense of liberal hostility conducive to the free expression 

 of opinions of whatever shade. Their expansion has been favoured 

 by the level, open ground of competition ; and no embittered senti- 

 ments, arising from suspected trickery or influence, can possibly exist 

 beyond the hour of victory, to taint success with insolence, or failure 

 with malignity. Such is one, at least, of those innumerable benefits 

 resulting from the measure of Reform. Elating as the late returns 

 must be to all the advocates of freedom and improvement, the friends 

 of Whiggism must lament the differences which have severed and dis- 

 persed the active agents of Reform of those enlightened and accom- 

 plished statesmen, whose united talents " wielded the democracy of 

 England/' and achieved the victory of liberality and justice over the 

 inflexible opponents of constitutional regeneration. United in the ar- 

 dour of the battle, they have separated in the glory of the triumph: 

 Speculation has, of course, been busy on the imaginary causes which 

 have broken old connexions and subverted former friendships. 

 Guided by no certain facts, we think it equally the duty of impar- 

 tiality and prudence to withhold conjecture. The time is not far 

 M.M. No. 2. P 



