1830.] The Year 1830. 121 



upon our speeches. In addition, Lord Plunket and his tribe are objects 

 of our peculiar disgust ; and we will pronounce, in the teeth of any 

 trimmer of them all, that the events of last year have given a lesson worth 

 all that will ever drop from the lips of political apostacy. 



Through what new shapes and changes of national life we may be 

 destined to pass before another year shall roll over our heads, is in 

 the decision of Providence ; but, if they keep pace with the year 

 1829, they must "be eminently anxious and trying. No year, since the 

 memorable 1 789, which announced the fall of the French monarchy, 

 has seen a course of events so pregnant with mysterious threatenings to 

 the whole system of continental power. To England its warnings have 

 been still more distinct ; for in England alone has there been a direct 

 and declared " breach of the Constitution." 



The Protestant advocates could not extort the secret necessity of this 

 breach from the minister. He was asked to point to what personage, quar- 

 ter, or circumstance, he alluded with such overwhelmed features. He still 

 refused; and murmured over the coming downfall. But the secret 

 never escaped his lips. It has never escaped them since ; and it must 

 have been of the most extreme species of secrecy, for to this hour it has 

 not been discovered by living man. 



Some conjectured that the appalled minister had been shaken in 

 his nerves by the revolt of the troops. But not a drummer rebelled. 

 Some conceived that an invasion by the Pope in revenge for the humi- 

 liation of his tribe, might have been announced to him by Lord 

 Burghersh, in a note on the back of his lordship's latest sonata. No 

 document of the kind is known to have reached Downing-street. Some 

 even conjectured that the right honourable gentleman's own dismissal 

 from office might have been the appalling vision. But the fact never 

 reached human ears ; and we are still perplexed to conceive that momen- 

 tous danger, too resistless to be encountered, and too terrible to be 

 described, which came with such silence, and has passed away with 

 such civility. 



The progress of the Popish bill was urged with extraordinary rapidity, 

 and by majorities that astounded the country. On the 6th of March, the 

 House came to a division on going into the committee ; the Propapists 

 being 348, the Protestants 160 majority 188. 



On the 18th of March the second reading was carried, the Propapists 

 being 353, the Protestants 173 ; majority 180. On the 30th of March, 

 the bill was read the third time, the Propapists being 320, the Pro- 

 testants 142. The majority was here inferior. But the necessity for 

 exertion on the part of propopery had been long felt to be at an end. 



Its progress in the House of Lords was equally rapid, and still more 

 astounding. The reception of the measure in the Commons for seven 

 years, had prepared the nation to expect a numerous troop of supporters 

 to the popish bill. But the Lords had distinguished themselves by a 

 manly and open repulsiveness to every approach of the measure. They 

 were felt to be placed in the advance of the Constitution. Their rank 

 in society, which might be presumed to make men additionally cautious 

 in treading a circuitous path in politics, their senatorial independence of 

 popular caprice, their general elevation of habit, and even their general 

 time of life might have been presumed to secure them from sudden 

 submission. And it niust be acknowledged that the most manly and. 

 high-hearted exhibitions of resistance were made in the Lords. But the 



M.M. New Series. Vol.. IX. No. 50. R 



