THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 



OF 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES LETTRES. 



VOL. XVI.] AUGUST, 1833. [No. 92. 



LEGISLATIVE PEERS. 



THEIR MODE OF CONSTITUTION, POWERS, PRIVILEGES, &C. IN 

 THE VARIOUS REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENTS. 



OF the governments which have hitherto appeared in the history 

 of mankind, few or none have taken their rise from political wisdom, 

 but have been the gradual result of time and experience of events 

 and emergencies. In process of time, indeed, every government 

 acquires a systematical appearance ; for although its different parts 

 arose from circumstances which may be regarded as accidental and 

 irregular, yet there must exist among these parts a certain degree of 

 analogy and consistency. Wherever a government has existed for 

 ages, and men have enjoyed tranquillity under it, it is a proof that 

 its principles are not essentially at variance with each other. Every 

 new institution which was introduced must have had a certain refer- 

 ence to the laws and usages existing before, otherwise it would not 

 have been permanent in its operation. 



But the nature and spirit of a government, as it is actually ex- 

 ercised at a particular period, cannot always (if ever) be collected 

 from an examination of written laws, or of the established forms of 

 the constitution. These may continue the same for a long course of 

 ages, while the government may be modified in its exercise to a great 

 extent by gradual and indescribable alterations, in the ideas, manners, 

 and character of the people, or by a change in the relations which 

 the different orders of the community bear to each other ; for in 

 every country, besides the established laws, the political state of the 

 people is affected by an infinite variety of circumstances, of which 

 no words can convey a conception, and which are to be collected 

 only from actual observation. Thus it frequently happens that there 

 are essential circumstances in the actual state of a government about 

 which the constitutional laws are not only silent, but which are 

 directly contrary to all written laws, and to the spirit of the very 

 constitution itself as delineated by the best writers. 



In every government the stability and influence of established 

 authority must depend on the coincidence between its measures and 

 the tide of public opinion, which, through the medium of the press, 

 has acquired such an ascendency in human affairs as it never possessed 

 > M. M. No. 92. R 



