242 The Opening of the Session of Parliament. [MARCH, 



vation. But the monarchical principle still remains unassailed by any 

 breaker-in upon the glorious labour of the glorious dead ; and that prin- 

 ciple it shall be our most zealous task, as it is among our first duties, 

 to preserve unshaken in the general trials that, from time to time, visit 

 all nations. 



The King's Speech is divided, as usual, under the several heads of 

 foreign and domestic policy, trade and revenue, law, manufactures, and 

 the state of the people. In this Speech, two important features are 

 omitted, the Church, and Ireland. Another feature might have heen 

 introduced, for which no trivial gratitude would have been felt ; and 

 which must be introduced before long ; the improvement of the Legis- 

 lature. A measure before whose importance all the other interests of 

 the state are child's play. 



Let no one suppose that we are stooping to follow in the train of those 

 miserable beings whose principles were as black, as their conduct was 

 calculated to excite the indignation of every man of British feeling. 

 We abhor the Radicalism, which sees nothing in established institutions 

 but objects for the exercise of its powers of overthrow ; hates every man 

 in the exact proportion as he rises superior to the multitude in manliness, 

 wisdom, and integrity ; and clasps to its bosom and lifts on its shoul- 

 ders every man of conspicuous miscreancy. But we must not suffer 

 ourselves to be deaf to the voice that calls for the purification of all the 

 great instruments of Empire. We must see the great political priest- 

 hood who officiate in our names round the Altar of the State, prepared 

 for their office by something more than the mere robes. And we must 

 see this, or see a result, to which our present public anxieties, the 

 clamour of our struggling population, and the deepening pressures on 

 every man, let his rank be what it may, will be but as the blowing of 

 the summer's wind. The theory, that there was a grand rectifying 

 power in the Legislature, which would instinctively correct its anoma- 

 lies, seems to be given up by its oldest advocates. Canning's showy 

 declamation has faded away, and we hear no more of the influence of 

 popular checks on the one hand, and legislatorial impulses on the other, 

 each exercising that measured restraint, those centripetal and centrifugal 

 forces, by which the State was swept harmoniously round its orbit 

 from year to year, every slight deviation compensated by some wise 

 reaction, until the whole moved, the balanced and illustrious pheno- 

 menon of a free constitution. But we may give other evidence than 

 our own, to the fact that Parliamentary Reform, conducted on the origi- 

 nal principles of parliament, is growing less into a rabble desire than 

 a public demand. We quote on this subject, (Quarterly Review, Ja- 

 nuary 1830) an authority which will be scarcely suspected of blowing 

 the trumpet to rouse a sleeping opinion. 



" We cannot refrain from intimating it as our firm persuasion, that 

 whoever listens attentively to the tone and language which is now heard 

 in the unrestrained intercourse of the higher as well as lower classes of 

 society, will be constrained to admit, that the resolutions and proceed- 

 ings of the Legislature, and especially of the House of Commons, no 

 longer command that respect and submission with which they were 

 wont to be regarded !" 



After this auspicious opening, the Review gives a passing touch of 

 panegyric to Parliaments in general, which by no means communicates 

 any peculiar share of brightness to the one in question. " So long as 

 the Representatives of a Free People discharge their duty with wisdom 



